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LIFE AND TIMES 

of 

ANDREW JACKSON. 



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ANDREW JACKSON 

HE HERMITAGE, 1830. FROM A PAINTING BY EARL 



LIFE AND TIMES 



— OF — 



Andrew Jackson 



Soldier ==St at esman= Tresident 



"By A. S. COLYAR, 

NASHVILLE, TENN. 



VOLUME I, 



NASHVILLE, TENN. 

Press of MARSHALL & BRUCE COMPANY, 
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BY A. S. COLYAR 

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PREFACE 



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PREFACE. 

ATA HIS book was written under a sense of a double 

I duty, which some American citizen should perform 

— that of giving a true life of Andrew Jackson, 

which would itself be a refutation and an exposure of the 

wrongs done this great American citizen. 

With this simple statement, I refer the reader for a con- 
tinuation of the subject, to "Why I Wrote the Life and 
Times of Andrew Jackson." 



■AC 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



VOLUME I. 



CHAPTER I. 

Entrance into life sadly and painfully obscure — Never saw his 
father — Did not know in what State he was born — Many spiteful 
books written about him bring- a feeling of resentment — Parton 
and Sumner as biographers have dishonored him — Shall the 
record made go to posterity without correction ? 

CHAPTER n. 

His lineage shadowy; Irish or Scotch-Irish — Nothing behind his 
grandfather, killed at Carrickfergus— The mother started to walk 
to South Carolina, stopped on the way, and Andrew Jackson was 
born — Family buried in unknown graves — The mother as a nurse 
in hospitals. 

CHAPTER III. 

When Jackson came to Tennessee he found the heroes of the Ala- 
mance and King's Mountain there — The first battle of the Revo- 
lution was not Lexington and Concord, but the battle of the 
Alamance, in North Carolina — The first democratic government 
was formed on the Watauga, in what is now Tennessee. 

CHAPTER IV. 

Parton's gossip about Jackson's boyhood exposed — Made a Major 
General in the United States Army when he had not been a 

Lieutenant — His business habits — His fidelity in public office 

His fight with bullies at Gallatin — His growth in education from 
observation, not at school — His power as a letter writer — His grace 
and dignity of manner. 

CHAPTER V. 

His record as a constitution maker — His record in the lower house 
of Congress— His first speech in full— Accomplished what he went 
to do and resigned— Then in the Senate and resigned — Judge in 
Supreme Court, but resigned. 



^ 



xiv TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER VI. 
Colonel Benton draws his picture sketch — How he met difificulties 
and overcame them — The of&ces he resig-ned — How Jackson failed 
to be appointed by the Government when he was greatly needed 
— How he proved his worth — Jackson's promptness in raising- an 
army — Colonel Carroll. 

CHAPTER VII. 
Jackson's friends and enemies reveal two classes — Next he Jackson- 
ized the country — Colonel Benton's knowledge of Jackson through 
life — The one vote that did so much for Jackson — Cartwright and 
Blackburn, the great preachers, as friends of Jackson. 

CHAPTER VIII. 

Jackson ordered to raise an army and protect the frontier — British 
then claiming everything; victories had made them haughty — 
Ivondon papers on war — Ministers at Ghent alarmed — Napoleon's 
capitulation sent Wellington's forces to United States — Hence 
Jackson conquered the world's conquerors. 

CHAPTER IX. 

Jackson's close touch with his men — Issues most extraordinary 
orders to army — Correspondence with officers — Jackson's dispatch 
concerning situation in Indian stronghold — Kindness to the poor, 
famished Indians. 

CHAPTER X. 
The correspondence between Governor Blount and General Jack- 
son — Jackson refuses to return to Tennessee, and raises a new 
army. 

CHAPTER XI. 

The excursion — Jackson's report to General Pinckney— Was a Major 
General and commanding Tennessee militia, reporting to United 
States ofificer — Battle of Emuckfau and Enotachopoc — General 
Coffee wounded — Jackson and his company of ofi&cers — Starva- 
tion and mutiny, but no retreat for Jackson. 

CHAPTER XII. 

The battle of the Horse Shoe — Sketch of the life of Sam Houston, 
including Governor Houston's letter resigning the office of Gov- 
ernor. 

CHAPTER XIII. 

Jackson reaches the holy ground — An exciting scene with Weather- 
ford, the Indian chief — A sketch of Davy Crockett, with facts 
about the awful massacre at the Alamo. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. xv 

CHAPTER XIV. 
Ending of the Creek campaig-n— Jackson made a Major General in 
the United States Army— The results of this campaign— Alabama 
historian on the fighting quality of the Indians. 

CHAPTER XV. 

Persistent refusal of General Jackson to accept civic honors; his 
genius preeminently military— Tennesseans recognize this, but 
the United States Government remains long unconvinced — The 
Creek campaign and the beginning of the war of 1812 finally result 
in removing prejudice at Washington, and Jackson is made 
Major General in the regular army. 

CHAPTER XVI. 
Great diplomatic skill shown in drawing up the Creek treaty- 
Scholarly correspondence with Secretary of War Armstrong and 
the Spanish Governor of Eouisiana— With skill, independence 
and judgment Jackson arranged for and conducted the battle of 
New Orleans pending delayed instructions from Washington. 

CHAPTER XVII. 
Jackson's indomitable will, invincible courage and power to inspire 
his men alone made possible a successful campaign in the South 
— For this alone he deserves a monument from the nation — The 
little-known battle of Mobile— Jackson's characteristic modesty 
gives credit to his officers and soldiers. 

CHAPTER XVIII. 
The gallant defense of Fort Bowyer— The defeat of the British on 
land and water — Its effects far-reaching, even influencing the 
reasonable terms of the treaty of Ghent— The attack on Pensa- 
cola— Jackson's expressed willingness to personally bear the 
possible disapproval of his tardy government. 

CHAPTER XIX. 
The most complete, powerful and hitherto successful naval force 
that Great Britain could furnish prepared to attack New Orleans 
— The mixed population of the city offer no aid to Jackson until 
his powerful appeal reconciles the disaffected elements — The 
victory at New Orleans only made possible by the Tennessee 
troops. 

CHAPTER XX. 

Jackson reaches New Orleans — Carroll and Coffee coming with five 
thousand three hundred Tennesseans — Jackson's presence in 



xvi TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

New Orleans inspires confidence — How he dealt with the delayed 
elements — Martial law. 

CHAPTER XXI. 

Lieutenant Jones with a small force fights so gallantly that, 
though defeated, the defense will live in history — Coffee and 
Carroll sent for — " Don't stop till you reach me," said Jackson — 
Coffee makes a phenomenal march of one hundred and fifty miles 
in two days — Major H. H. Overton given command of Fort Phil- 
lips — Unparalleled night battle of December 23. 

CHAPTER XXII. 

Jackson, touched with a genius of war, brought relief — How the 
night battles shocked the British army — Nolte's story about the 
cotton bales a falsehood; no cotton bales used — Jackson ready for 
the fight on the 37th of December — Took some rest after four days 
and nights without rest— The battle of the 28th of December. 

CHAPTER XXni. 

The " subaltern " a witness — Walker, author of " Jackson and New 
Orleans," becomes a witness — The battle of the first of January 
— The great battle contest from the 23d of December until the 
8th of January — It was a continuous fight. 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

The battle of the first of January — Still victory — A terrible wound 
makes lifetime friends — Jackson's two ' ' back-downs " — The Ken- 
tucky troops — The enemy reinforced — January 7th all done that 
could be done; Jackson ready and composed — This Government 
has never laid a slab over his grave. 

CHAPTER XXV. 

The present generation knows but little of the war of 1812 — Parton 
on the first thirty-seven days of 1815 — The truth told and Parton 
has credit — The awful suspense at Washington — Jackson and the 
Hall of Fame. 

CHAPTER XXVI. 

Jackson's patriotic address to the people of New Orleans — Full of 
history — The honor paid Jackson by the people — The speech of 
the Rev. Dubourg and Jackson's reply. 

CHAPTER XXVII. 

At 1 o'clock Jackson said, "Rise; the enemy will be on us; I must 
go and see Coffee " — Carroll was given the center; the assault 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. xvii 

was then made— Packenham was killed; Gibbs took his place and 
was killed; Lambert took Gibbs' place and was shot from his 
horse— The accounts given by the British officers — The attack on 
Carroll's lines much like Napoleon's attack on Wellington's right 
wing. 

CHAPTER XXVIII. 

Driving the British army to their ships— Jackson returned — Jack- 
son's reward for having the Legislature guarded— General Coffee 
replies to a resolution honoring him and other officers — Major 
Overton in defending Fort Phillips— The enforcement of martial 
law— Newspaper attack by Louaillier — His arrest— The arrest of 
Judge Hall. 

CHAPTER XXIX. 

Hall arrests Jackson— Jackson in court — Jackson's fine paid, and 
remitted after twenty-seven years. 

CHAPTER XXX. 

The demurrer in the United States Senate over Judge Hall's fine- 
Judge Tappan, of Ohio, defends Jackson— Long continued perse- 
cution of Jackson for arresting Hall — Again Parton seeks to 
dishonor Gen. and Mrs. Jackson— The ball given in their honor— 
The students of the University of Nashville give Jackson a re- 
ception when he returns to Nashville. 

CHAPTER XXXI. 

English writers admit that the entire loss in killed, wounded and 
desertion in the army that came to the South was 4,000— Those 
not dead or missing, when they returned to England, were 
sent to Wellington and were in battle of Waterloo— Jackson at 
home, then ordered to Washington and again put to work — Cor- 
respondence between General Jackson and General Scott. 

CHAPTER XXXII. 

Continuation of the affair with General Scott— Jackson notifies 
Scott that he is ready to receive any communication sent. 

CHAPTER XXXIII. 

Jackson's critics in ignorance of his real character — Bishop Potter's 
famed " Jeffersonian simplicity to Jacksonian vulgarity " — Other 
distinguished writers — Proof that Jackson wrote his own State 
papers. 
1 



My Reasons for Writing the Life 
of Andrew Jackson. 



MY REASONS FOR WRITING THE) LIFK 
OF ANDREW JACKSON. 

TO tell you why I wrote the Life of Andrew Jackson 
would require more space than you can afford to 
give me in any publication you may desire to make. 
Like everything else that a man undertakes, of as much 
moment as this was to me, it must, before he can work well, 
grow into a passion. I had only what had been picked up 
in reading without any purpose, a very good idea of General 
Jackson's public life — that is, good in the estimation of 
the men who have lived in my time who knew General 
Jackson had fought a great battle, and had been a very 
energetic President. We knew his conflicts in life, public 
and private, had been extraordinary. We had just informa- 
tion enough about the man to attract a young man who was 
giving some attention to the history of his country, and 
some special attention to the history of his State. Such 
were the conflicts in the public mind about General Jackson, 
that I became, as many others, interested in knowing the 
truth, and especially what was the truth in reference to 
General Jackson's political life — whether it had been a life 
of patriotism, or a life of ambition ; whether he had been a 
man of pure principle, or as many of the writers said, and as 
many of them thought, a man who lived upon his prejudices. 
To me the battle of New Orleans, as it was generally told, 
was incredible, and like a large majority of the people of 
Tennessee in the second and third generation from the 
second war for freedom, no man could believe the story 
as it was told — that he had fought one of the finest of En- 
gland's armies, destroying a very large part of it and driven 



6 INTRODUCTORY. 

the balance from the country, losing six men killed and seven 
wounded. But there was the victory — the wonderful vic- 
tory over one of England's finest generals and one of its 
finest armies, with the astounding fact on Jackson's side 
that he had organized his own army, that he had appointed 
his own generals, that his army was almost entirely made 
up from the citizens of his own State, and that they were 
absolutely without military experience. This state of facts 
which was in the public mind and generally told, in the 
enormity and extravagance of the story itself, prompted me 
to look into it, and after a good deal of investigation I found 
what I believed to be the most extraordinary set of facts in 
the annals of modern warfare. I became intensely inter- 
ested. This interest increased as year by year I gathered 
up the facts. There were many striking features in it that 
amazed me, and they were of such deep interest to my 
native State, as well as to my whole country, that I said, 
"Surely somebody will write the truth of history and let the 
world know who General Jackson was, what he did ; some- 
one who will tell the story as it is due to coming genera- 
tions." 

There was confusion in my mind as to the cause of the 
disagreement in the public mind as to the true character of 
General Jackson. I found that two lives had been written 
— one a book of more than 2,000 pages, written evidently 
by a man to make money, without any just appreciation of 
a biography which was to form a part cff American history ; 
the other was written by a New England professor, and by 
a man who evidently, as he shows in his book from the very 
start, was not a friend of the War of 1812, and that he 
could not do justice to a general who had been an important 
factor in that war. He did not hesitate to express his 
preference for the principles of the Hartford Convention to 
the doctrines of Jefferson and Jackson. I saw nobody who 
was likely to undertake this work. I had but little time to 



INTRODUCTORY. 7 

(Jo it — was a pretty busy man in my profession, but I made 
up my mind that I would devote my spare time to writing 
articles for the press — "Memoirs of General Jackson," and 
I feel now that the leading incentive to that resolution was 
to do justice to my own State, rather than to the country at 
large, for I had never before realized or appreciated Ten- 
nessee's place in the history of the country. 

It came to me with great force that General Jackson as a 
factor in the second American Revolution had immortalized 
Tennessee, and, perhaps, with more than ordinary feeling 
of State pride I commenced this work, with the hope thai 
with such means and at such times as I could spare I would 
be able finally to prepare and submit a life of this distin- 
guished Tennessean that would at least do justice to him 
and his soldiers. My early life had been without any 
particular predilection in favor of General Jackson. I was 
connected by family ties with the Sevier side of the contro- 
versy, that is so memorable in the history of the State, 
between Jackson and Sevier, and all my training and feeling 
and family influence had been on the side of Sevier instead 
of Jackson. But the astounding prejudice that had been 
brought against General Jackson by Parton, and other sec- 
tional partisan writers, excited in me a sense and a spirit 
that justice must be done and that the truth must be told. 
I realized that no man could read Sumner's "Life of Jack- 
son," or Parton's "Life of Jackson," without laying down 
the book in doubt as to whether he was a good man or a 
bad man, and whether he was really a patriot, a friend to 
his country, or an enemy to his country. 

In this full belief, after a somewhat extended examination 
which I made, I made up my mind, and it has never been 
changed — every day's observation and every day of investi- 
gation for now five years in writing the book and collecting 
facts have impressed me that of all the men this country 
has produced, he was one of the truest, and not only one of 



8 INTRODUCTORY. 

the truest, but one of the most lovable men in all his relations 
I in private life — that in all he had to do with men, whether 
[ in public or private life, he was the truest of men. As I 
saw him, he never had an aspiration in the world that was 
not founded in the good of his country — and it was with this 
feeling that I commenced the work; but the most striking 
feature, and the one that sank deepest and most intensely 
interested me, were the conditions and circumstances under 
which and in which General Jackson entered into military 
life and took upon himself the great work of rescuing his 
country — his whole country, not simply Tennessee; not 
his friends, but the whole country — from its humiliation. 

For instance, I found upon examination that the War of 
1 812 had in a great measure broken the martial spirit of the 
entire country, and, without now undertaking to give the 
reasons for it, it seemed to me that the spirit that had ani- 
mated Washington's war — the War of the Revolution — 
>i and kept our soldiers in the field for nearly eight years, had 
1 totally disappeared. The victories over our armies had not 
only been complete, disastrous to us, but they had humiliated 
every American reader who loved his country — not one 
single victory had we had in the contest with the British. 
Not only were these victories of the British over our armies 
a source of mortification to the whole country, indeed, alarm, 
but the President of the United States, a true patriot and 
great citizen — Mr. Madison — had been driven from post 
to post. They had entered the Capitol and burned it; they 
had murdered American citizens in the streets; they had 
driven the President of the United States out of the White 
House. Not only was this going on at home, but England 
was in a state of glorification over its victories. The 
London Times and the London Sun, perhaps, came nearer 
being two great blackguards than was ever known in papers 
of their high character, in our vilification, in their denuncia- 
tion of us. They proclaimed from day to day that we had 



INTRODUCTORY. 9 

turned out to be a nation of cowards ; that we had by trickery 
gained our independence, and that we had brought on this 
war without any just cause — made a great to-do about it — 
and that after we had brought on the war we had turned 
out to be a nation of cowards unwilling to fight, and fleeing 
before their armies. The theaters and playhouses in London 
in the winter of 1813 and 1814 were packed to witness sham 
battles of soldiers with cowards. While this was going on, 
Mr. Madison had sent commissioners to England to make 
peace, and without any suggestion from the British Govern- 
ment of a desire for peace, or any intimation that they were 
willing to make peace. The President had appointed five 
commissioners — five of the most distinguished men : Mr. 
Adams, Mr. Bayard, Mr. Clay, Mr. Gallatin, and Mr. 
Crawford — to go to England and see what could be done. 
At the time Jackson came to the front they had been in 
England about twelve months. They had met the British 
Commissioners, and in view of their victories over us — 
what they had done, what their success had been — they 
were unwilling to make any terms that did not include a 
large cession of our territory to England as a basis of settle- 
ment. They demanded that we should surrender to them 
all of what is now Wisconsin, Michigan, and a large part of 
what is Illinois and Indiana. 

Mr. Gallatin's letters to the President of the United 
States, afterwards made public, show that our condition as 
our commissioners saw it was indeed most critical. Mr. 
Gallatin pointed out in his letters to the President of the 
United States that his greatest difficulties, or one of his 
greatest difficulties, was, that the most extensively populated 
portion of our country — New England — was all against 
the war and not in sympathy with him, all of which the 
President of the United States had fully realized. 

This being our condition in the second War of the Revo- 
lution, at the time Jackson raised his own army and brought 



10 INTRODUCTORY. 

relief to the country, it came to me as a revelation that 
General Jackson's true history had been obscured by preju- 
diced writers, and I suppose this more than anything else 
prompted me to the work which I have done. What General 
Jackson had to contend with in the Creek War, and what he 
accomplished, and how he turned the tide, can only be 
known by such careful investigation as I have made in writ- 
ing this book. The truth is, General Jackson's Creek Cam- 
paign, his victory at Fort Bowyer in the destruction of a 
naval force of considerable importance, and capture of 
Pensacola, have all been obscured by the light of his great 
victory at New Orleans afterwards. 

General Wellington said at a dinner table in London — 
talking to Andrew J. Donelson, when Donelson was on his 
way as Minister to Berlin, as I was informed by Mrs. Wilcox 
at Washington, who was a daughter of Donelson and with 
him in London — that he had carefully examined the Creek 
Campaign, and that if Jackson had done nothing else, it 
made him one of the great generals of the world. 

In these researches I made what seemed to me to be a dis- 
covery, but it was simply obscured history which I dug up 
by piecemeal and established the following facts : That up 
to the time of these victories of General Jackson, the news 
of which reached England, with the fact that the President 
had made him a Major General in the United States Army, 
our commissioners were utterly hopeless, and that when the 
British Commissioners got this news they notified our com- 
missioners that they would withdraw the offensive demands 
that they had niade, and two days thereafter the treaty of 
Ghent was signed, showing that General Jackson made the 
treaty of Ghent just as much as he fought the battle of New 
Orleans. At this juncture the mystery of the battle of New 
Orleans was solved, because I found that instead of one bat- 
tle fought on the 8th of January with 6,000 raw troops, fight- 
ing more than double their number of trained soldiers, he had 



INTRODUCTORY. H 

only completed a battle that had lasted almost continuously 
day and night from the 23d of December, 1 814, to the 8th of 
January, 181 5, and the British authorities which I have col- 
lected say, that in attacking the British Army at night during 
that period of more than two weeks he had utterly demoral- 
ized the army, and that it was in no condition to fight when 
the final struggle came. 

When I came to look into General Jackson's civil life, and 
what he did as President of the United States, I am more 
struck with it than I am with his extraordinary military life 
— in his successes as President in the conflicts he had with a 
hostile Senate during nearly the whole period, headed by 
Clay, Webster, and Calhoun, he did, perhaps, what no other 
man could have done — that is, he retained the confidence 
of the people ; and while it would look that both Houses of 
Congress were against him at one period, as he was com- 
pelled to veto very important bills, the people never elected 
and sent to Washington a Congress during the whole eight 
years that wasn't for Jackson and Jackson's policy. When 
Mr. Bell was elected Speaker of the House he was a strong 
Jackson man, but turned over to the Bank side. Two 
years later the people sent up a Congress that refused to re- 
elect Mr. Bell, and elected James K. Polk Speaker of the 
House. 

Jackson's political life — that is, his public career as 
President — was probably more pleasing to the whole people 
than had been the public life of any previous President. 

When he became President in 1829, we had many unset- 
tled matters with foreign nations, including the spoliation 
claims with half a dozen nations, all of which he settled up 
and collected the money. They were old and complicated, 
and had fought their way through all the administrations 
from Washington down — indeed, they were old barnacles, 
that it was frightful to consider. 

Jackson not only cleared them all up, but when he went 



12 INTRODUCTORY. 

out of office, in 1837, every matter of controversy with 
V every nation had been cleared up, and he turned over to his 
successor an absolutely clean sheet, 

I am not inclined to close this review of my reasons for 
writing the Life of Jackson without expressing what has 
been the greatest wrong to Jackson's character by those who 
assailed him, and what to me has been the greatest pleasure 
of the entire work. Commencing the work at an age when 
I needed repose and not toil, I found an unceasing pleasure 
in General Jackson's private life, even more than in all of his 
public service. More than a hundred publications about 
Jackson have been written in the form of books, pamphlets, 
and vicious diatribes, sometimes in one form and sometimes 
in another. They have ranged from the literature of Parton, 
in which he sums up, as I now remember, in his last chapter 
what he says is Jackson's true character, especially making 
him not only illiterate, but a man incapable of being anything 
else than a social anomoly down to even a much lower class, 
whose names and vicious, vulgar diatribes must never go 
again into a book. Instead of the character thus given, I 
^ found General Jackson to be a man of refinement and of the 
finest sensibilities, perhaps the most lovable man in all his 
/ family relations of all our public men ; the most elegant man 
' in society, the most lordly in his manner, with an amount of 
cultivation coming from an education which he had acquired 
along the walks of life, which I am sure will surprise every 
reader of the book who hasn't given the subject the same 
attention I have. I have read more than a hundred and 
twenty of his original letters ; they are not the letters of a 
literary man, but they are the letters of an educated man, a 
man who knew the world and all classes of people; his 
letters to the public men, to members of his family, to women 
and children, are among the finest specimens of common life 
literature to be found among the men of distinction in this 
or any other country — in fact, he is the finest letter writer 



/ 



INTRODUCTORY. 13 

(take his letters in all their aspects) that this country has 
produced. 

I note in reading his letters from 1788, when he first came 
to Tennessee, down to 1845, the time of his death, that in 
culture as well as information there was a continuous 
growth. His early letters show a man of great power, but 
lacking in words ; but he came to be, in his power of expres- 
sion, in his use of language, in his well-chosen sentences, 
indeed a model letter writer. 

In nothing will the true life of Andrew Jackson be more 
surprising to cultured people than in his marvelous acquire- 
ments which evidently came from reading and observation. 
In some respects General Jackson excels all men, especially 
in his courteous and gentlemanly bearing in society, and 
particularly among women. I have in my possession, in 
printed pamphlet form, the letter of Judge McNairy, who 
brought him from North Carolina to Tennessee. This 
letter was written and printed in 1827, when General Jack- 
son was bitterly assailed by his political enemies about his 
marriage, and Judge McNairy says that he and Jackson 
roomed together at Salisbury, North Carolina. They trav- 
eled together, when one was judge and the other attorney 
general, as United States officers. Jackson was then a very 
young man. He says they boarded together in Nashville 
and roomed together, and of all the men he had ever known 
m his life, General Jackson was the most nearly perfect in 
all his relations with women. This letter is a short biog- 
raphy of the private and social life of General Jackson, and 
as a chapter of refutation of what ignorant and vicious 
writers have said, it should be truly a feature in the life and 
character of this wonderful man. 

In General Jackson's military career, he was blessed as a 
commander of armies, was blessed with two lieutenants — 
Carroll and Coffee — who were invaluable to him. They 
were selected by him, not as Napoleon selected his marshals 



14 INTRODUCTORY. 

— out of the ranks ; Jackson had no ranks when he chose 
them for lieutenants, and they will live in history along with 
his own name. 

And, fortunately, in his career as President of the United 
States, he had for his Prime Minister, Col. Thomas H. 
Benton, and as a parliamentarian this country has not had 
his superior. General Jackson was a firm believer in an 
overruling Providence, and always believed that he might 
rely on a just Providence in taking his side. 

In one respect a favorite aspiration in the work has not 
been encouraged — while the conviction of its merit has 
been increased. From the time I got well into the work I 
became deeply interested that our young men should have a 
just and true estimate of General Jackson's character as 
well as of his powers, and it has been a labor of love, if such 
a work can be called labor, to prepare a connected and 
truthful story of a public and private life, so high and so 
worthy as Andrew Jackson's. 

If it be true that the men who are lingering with us, in 
their younger days became more interested in the men who 
had made our history than the young men of the present 
day, it is not a pleasing thought to those who are lingering. 
With this apprehension in writing the work now coming 
from the press, I have fully appreciated the importance of 
giving out a life — a character — whose deeds make undy- 
ing history for our young men in a service that will stay 
with the records through the ages, but at the same time 
entice them into the domain of patriotism by a romance that 
for the time puts fiction on the shelf. A romance that is as 
pathetic as true, commencing with the burial of his father, 
an Irish peasant, in a lonely grave, and his own birth in 
the cabin of a stranger on the side of the road leading 
away from the grave, on the same day, and in quick 
succession the mother dying in a hospital nursing the sick, 
and his own first collision in jail when he refused to polish 



INTRODUCTORY. 15 

a British officer's boots, and his last colHsion when he sent 
England's greatest army — all he did not kill — back on 
the way to a funeral service over the bodies of Packenham 
and Gibbs, with a doctor dressing the wounds of Keane, 
and then by the very majesty of his manner making an 
order on old England to keep the peace in the presence of 
Uncle Sam. 

But I trust with the romance of facts unequaled in fiction, 
and passing over several personal collisions which came 
from a high sense of personal honor, all of which passed 
away without malice, I may take the young men who may 
be inclined to get on a higher plane of life than that of strife 
in war's ways or in facts that take the place of fiction. 

As President of the United States, Andrew Jackson, by 
an intellectual foresight and a courage in duty, made eight 
years in American history to be known as "The Jacksonian 
Period," and in many respects, without unduly praising it, 
it will occupy the most conspicuous place in our first hun- 
dred years — indeed, in the first hundred and fourteen 
years. 

Andrew Jackson's history, from the time he was first 
talked of for President, in 1816, to the retirement from the 
office of President (and well might be included the great 
life of the private citizen after he retired until his death), 
should be studied with care by every young man who is at 
all interested, or can be made so, in American history. As 
time goes on, and men without prejudice or local prefer- 
ences, who study American history, who come to make up 
the record, will give Jackson not only the first place as a 
soldier, judging by sagacity to see and genius to accomplish 
results, but they will write him the greatest of all the men 
who have filled that highest office to which men in modern 
times have aspired. 

I do not and cannot afford to put this statement in this 
book without a consciousness of verification by the record : 



16 INTRODUCTORY. 

indeed, the man who has given the state papers of our 
statesmen the most careful study because it came to be his 
highest duty — the Hon, James D. Richardson — is of the 
same opinion. 

As a Senator in 1824, when the election was thrown into 
the House, Mr. Webster, who was with him in the Senate, 
gives him the preference in dignity over all the other candi- 
dates — Adams, Clay and Crawford — and says he was the 
favorite of Mrs. Webster. 

But the young men of our country who want to know 
the history of it by its men — the men who have made our 
history — should at least read the Jacksonian period. No 
period in our history has had in the Senate for so long a 
period such an assemblage of great men — Adams, Clay, Cal- 
houn, Webster, Crawford and Benton, besides others nearly 
or quite equal in debate. Benton alone was standing by 
Jackson in his war with the Bank of the United States. 
It was more than a fight over the bank — it was through 
a large part of the eight years a war on Jackson. 

The decision has long since been made that Jackson's 
victory and final triumph over the Senate was the greatest 
intellectual victory of modern times. 



/ 



/ 

/ 



CHAPTER I. 

ENTRANCE INTO LIFE SADLY AND PAINFULLY OBSCURE 

NEVER SAW HIS FATHER DID NOT KNOW WHAT STATE 

HE WAS BORN IN MANY SPITEFUL BOOKS WRITTEN 

ABOUT HIM BRING A FEELING OF RESENTMENT PARTON 

AND SUMNER AS BIOGRAPHERS HAVE DISHONORED HIM 

SHALL THE RECORD MADE GO TO POSTERITY WITHOUT 
CORRECTION. 

IT may be said, with a confidence which reaches a convic- 
tion, that the world never produced any other man who 
rose to the distinction, in either miHtary or civil life, 
that Andrew Jackson did — and he reached the summit in 
both — whose origin, entrance into life, and early steps were 
so sadly and painfully obscure as his. If it were not that 
in the goodness of our natures we love self-made men who 
come to be benefactors to their race, and take pleasure in 
tracing their early days, to tell the story of his family, his 
birth, his boyhood, would be as painful as it is weird. 

Behind his father and mother there is not a trace of his 
family, except that Andrew's mother told him when a small 
boy that his grandfather was murdered in a massacre at 
Carrickfergus by the British; supposed to have been about 
1765. General Jackson did not know what State he was 
born in ; he never saw his father ; he was born of an Irish 
peasant woman, who, after burying her husband at the old 
Waxaw graveyard in North Carolina, started, and walking 
with two little boys — Irish boys, born in Ireland — aiming 
to reach a distant relative she had in South Carolina; and 
getting permission to stay all night in a road-side house, 
Andrew Jackson was born. This house was in North 
Carolina, though near the South Carolina line. 



18 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

It is left in doubt whether, after burying the husband and 
father of the future (then unborn) President of the United 
States, the family ever returned to the cabin they had left. 

This is the entire story, as far as history makes record, of 
the family of Andrew Jackson, and of himself down to the 
time when his mother took him in her arms — leaving the 
cabin on the roadside — and started to walk into South 
Carolina./ There is only enough evidence, and none to 
spare, about the place of his birth to meet the requirement 
of the Constitution about nativity as a qualification for the 
office of President of the United States. If he had been 
born in Ireland, as some writers have supposed, or if, as one 
determined writer asserts, he had been born in the ship on 
the ocean when the family were fleeing from British oppres- 
sion, he would have been barred from the office of President 
of the United States. 

Now, as there is nothing else of the ancestry of Andrew 
Jackson — for the lack of which I am not inclined, as Mr. 
Parton was, to substitute a history of the Irish race — I will 
be excused, I am sure, if I give here in this first chapter some 
outline in a general way of the incentives and purposes in 
writing the book — including in a general way his true 
character and masterly powers, as well as his true place in 
American history. 

Whether this is biographical literature for a first chapter, 
or not, is not considered, and though it may not inspire 
many boys who feel that they lack money and friends to 
hope for success, it will at once give them a just conception 
of the blessings that inhere in our government, so wisely 
formed for the masses, with no recognized sovereignty in 
birth or fortune. 

It did not require critical research to find that from some 
cause the two books — lives of General Jackson — written 
after his death, one by Parton and one by Sumner, were in 
many respects so palpably unjust as to be offensive to Ameri- 



ANDREW JACKSON. 19 

can history, and in other respects to be so spiteful and 
vicious in characterization, that a feehng of resentment, 
perhaps, had something to do in suggesting the work. In- 
stead of the ilhteracy, I found cuhure sufficient to make 
Andrew Jackson the best letter writer of all our Presidents. 
Instead of ignorance and impotency in the preparation of 
state papers, in the office of President, I found a man marvel- 
ously familiar with public affairs, both foreign and home, and 
well versed in international law, and I found the conclusive 
evidence that his greatest state papers were written by him- 
self without help from any source. Instead of a back- 
woodsman, coarse in manners, I found a man in social 
life most accomplished — lordly among men, elegant and 
gracious among women, and with a helping hand in the 
discharge of official duties when the strong oppressed the 
weak, all of which seemed to be parts of his nature. 

^ But, above all, I found a man whose place in American 
history had been obscured and not given. 

As a soldier, as well as in his career in the high trusts 
committed to him in civil affairs, including his services when 
a young man as one of the framers of our first Tennessee 
Constitution, then as a member of the Lower House of 
Congress, twice in the United States Senate, then as Gov- 
ernor of Florida, and finally as President of the United 
States, the two biographers not only fail to do justice to 
General Jackson, but they becloud every service, impugn his 
motives, falsify his intelligence, and become partisan critics 
with spiteful defamation. 

Professor Sumner in one of his early chapters discusses 
Mr. Jefferson's theory of government as compared with that 
of the Hartford Convention, giving his preference to the 
latter. ^^ And Mr. Parton, at the end of his 4,200 pages, 
says, "Of all human beings Jackson was least fit to be ] 
President of the United States." 



20 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

When this book is read, no reader will be surprised that a 
feeling of resentment came, and an inclination to write the 
truth of history about a man who was so truly national in 
his patriotism, and so wise in the conduct of civil affairs, 
and so capable and courageous as a Major General in the 
United States Army; indeed, who had wrested the flag 
from the military forces of old England and put it back on 
the Capitol at Washington, where it will stay as long as we 
have a republic, and that at a time when in the second war 
of the Revolution the martial spirit of our people and the 
soldier quality of our armies had been put to the severest 
test. That this great American, long after he is in the 
grave, shall become the victim of passion, prejudice, party 
spirit, or unfriendly sectional feeling, and books be written 
about him accredited with the evidence of truth, which 
common sense implies in a biographer, but which when 
read show almost numberless passages on which the 
descendants of the subject maligned, if he had any, could 
maintain actions for defamation against the guilty authors, 
if living, shall be allowed to go to posterity without correc- 
tion, would be a reflection on the race of men who lived 
when the evidences of the truth had not been lost or 
destroyed, and when the very winds from the graves of 
compatriot soldiers and statesmen come pleading the cause 
of justice and truth, is a reflection which came to me when 
research disclosed the truth. 

Although I was at an age that needed rest and not work — 
seeing no man still actively at work who had been an inter- 
ested spectator of the men and times and issues which came 
out of the Jacksonian period who was likely to undertake 
it — I commenced the work, and it has been a continuous 
source of pleasure. 

This first chapter covers the need of a preface. 



ANDREW JACKSON. 21 



CHAPTKR II. 

HIS LINEAGE SHADOWY; IRISH OR SCOTCH-IRISH NOTHING 

BEHIND HIS GRANDFATHER, KILLED AT CARRICKFERGUS 

THE MOTHER STARTED TO WALK TO SOUTH CAROLINA, 

STOPPED ON THE WAY, AND ANDREW JACKSON WAS 

BORN FAMILY BURIED IN UNKNOWN GRAVES THE 

MOTHER AS A NURSE IN HOSPITALS. 

THE character and condition of the people on the west 
side of the mountain when Andrew Jackson left 
North Carolina and came into a country, whose 
most eminent citizen he became, is important as a starting 
point in the life of a man who figured as General Jackson 
did. 

Having been born and raised in Washington County, 
near Jonesboro, where the fireside talk in my home was 
Jackson and Sevier, and Sevier and Jackson, and where 
every phase of their boyhood, as well as their entrance into 
public life and their deeds, were discussed, I am prepared 
to approve in the main the sketch in Colonel Allison's 
"Dropped Stitches." 

General Jackson came to Jonesboro in 1788, and reached 
Nashville in October of the same year — not, as Colonel 
Allison says, in the fall of 1789, or in the spring of 1790. 
He did not stop in Jonesboro, except temporarily; he came 
from Jonesboro to Greeneville with Judge McNairy, where 
they both got license to practice law. There is much cir- 
cumstantial evidence tending to show that Jackson and 
McNairy remained in East Tennessee two years, but I have 
in my possession the letter of Judge McNairy, written in 
1827, showing that he and General Jackson reached Nash- 
ville in October, 1 788. This is the extract from the letter : 



22 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

"Nashville, 7th May, 1827. 

"Dear Sir: — You desired me to state my knowledge of 
the private character of General Jackson, as it respects his 
conduct in connection and intermarriage with Mrs. Jackson. 

"General Jackson and myself have been acquainted for 
more than forty-five years; part of the time we lived 
together, and the balance in the immediate neighborhood 
of each other. We moved together from North Carolina 
to this State, and arrived at Nashville in October, 1788." 

When Jackson came to Jonesboro, and on to Nashville, 
he found a class of men who had recently crossed the moun- 
tain settling on the Watauga and Nolachucky rivers, and 
at Nashville, who seemed to be born soldiers. 

The great victory at King's Mountain; the destruction 
of the left wing of Cornwallis' army, moving, as it was, 
from the Southern seacoast up through the Carolinas to 
unite with the Northern victorious army somewhere in 
Virginia, at the very darkest hour of the Revolution, thereby 
causing Cornwallis to abandon his campaign and go back 
to the coast, and this mainly done by the backwoodsmen in 
what is now Tennessee; men who belonged to no army, 
collected and organized in less than ten days, which, consid- 
ered in connection with the great victory at New Orleans, 
settles the character and quality of Tennessee volunteers. 
The claim of these people to a place in history does not rest 
alone on the great victory at King's Mountain, nor in the 
world-renowned victory over the British at New Orleans. 
The men that crossed the mountain and settled on the 
Watauga and Nolachucky rivers were mainly from North 
Carolina, and they are the men that opened the ball in the 
great play of independence in the famous battle at the 
Alamance, in North Carolina, on the i6th of May, 1771. 

Speaking of the Regulators in North Carolina, which 
brought on the battle of the Alamance, Mr. Ramsey says : 
"While it is well known that the leaders of this oppressed 



ANDREW JACKSON. 23 

party now expressed a desire to be free from law or equi- 
table taxation, the Governor's palace, double and treble fees 
and taxes without law or reason, drove the sober to resist- 
ance and the passionate and unprincipled to outrage. The 
Regulators continued their resistance to illegal taxes two or 
three years." Then he shows how the British Governor, 
Trion, raised an army and fought the battle on the i6th of 
May, 1 77 1— the battle of the Alamance; the Regulators 
had an army of between two and three thousand, but they 
were poorly armed and were defeated by the Governor's 
forces, and thirty-six of them were killed in this battle, and 
a great number wounded on both sides. He shows that 
they did not flee until their ammunition was exh^iusted; 
he calls this the first battle— the first blood shed for the 
engagement of liberty. When defeated, they crossed the 
mountain and settled on the Wataug-a. 

But the main fact that I want is one that is conclusive as 
to this battle being the first of the Revolution. Our Min- 
ister to the Court of St. James, Mr. Bancroft, under Mr. 
Polk, got permission to look into the Blue Book, and in 
speaking of the British state papers which he found in the 
files— all the papers pertaining to the Regulators— he says 
in a letter to Mr. D. L. Swain, speaking of these state papers 
and the Regulators, they show "that their complaints were 
well founded and were so acknowledged, though their 
oppressors were only nominally punished. They form the 
connecting link between resistance to the Stamp Act, and 
the movement of 1775, and they also played a glorious part 
of the Mississippi Valley, towards which they were irresist- 
ibly carried by their love of independence. It is a mistake 
if any have supposed the Regulators were cowed down by 
their defeat at the Alamance. Like the Mammoth, they 
shook the bolt from their brow and crossed the mountains." 
Mr. Ramsey says, "Watauga gave its cordial welcome 



24 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

to these honest-hearted patriots, and here was the cradle of 
the infant Hercules — Tennessee." 

The opening ball of the Revolution was not Concord nor 
Lexington. It was the uprising of the people against 
the tyrant, Trion, at the Alamance, about forty miles west 
of Raleigh. It has been claimed that the first attempt at an 
independent government was at Mecklenburg, North Caro- 
lina, in May, 1775 ; others claim it at Boonsboro, Kentucky, 
in May, 1775. Haywood, in his "History of Tennessee," 
page 41, says: 

"In 1772 (May), the settlement on the Watauga, being 
without government, formed a written association and arti- 
cles for their conduct. They appointed five commissioners, 
a majority of whom were to decide all matters of contro- 
versy, and to govern and direct for the common good in 
other respects" ; and again, page 46 : "This committee 
settled all private controversies, and had a clerk, Felix 
Walker, now or lately a member of Congress from North 
Carolina. They also had a sheriff. This committee had 
stated and regular times for holding their sessions, and took 
the laws of Virginia for their standard of decision." 

Haywood further says that they were living under this 
government in November, 1775. 

Some four years after this local, self-independent govern- 
ment had been entered into by the settlers of Watauga, 
John Sevier, in a memorial to the North Carolina Legis- 
lature explaining it, says : 

"Finding ourselves on the frontiers and being appre- 
hensive that, for want of a proper legislature, we might 
become a shelter for such as endeavor to defraud their 
creditors ; considering also the necessity of recording deeds, 
wills, and doing other public business, we, by consent of the 
people, formed a court for the purposes above mentioned, 
taking, by desire of our constituents, the Virginia laws for 
our guide, so near as the situation of affairs would permit. 



ANDREW JACKSON. 25 

This was intended for ourselves, and was done by consent 
of every individual." 

These people then laid the foundation for a judicial 
system. The original paper is in the county clerk's office 
at Jonesboro, and is as follows (this is a literal copy) : 

"I do solemnly swear that as Justice of the Peace, and a 
Justice of the County Court of Pleas, and Quarter Sessions 
in the County of Washington, in all matters in the commis- 
sion to me directed, I will do equal right to the poor and the 
rich to the best of my judgment and according to the law 
of the State. I will not privately or openly, by myself or 
any other person, be of counsel in any quarrel, or suit, 
depending before me, and I will hold the County Court and 
Quarterly Sessions of my county, as the statute in that case 
shall and may direct : 

"The fines and amercements that shall happen to be made, 
and the forfeitures that shall be incurred, I shall cause to 
be duly entered without concealment. I will not wittingly 
or willingly take by myself, or any other person for me any 
fee, gift, gratuity or reward whatsoever for any matter or 
thing by me to be done, by virtue of my office, except such 
fees as are or may be directed or limited by statute, but well 
and truly I will do my office as a Justice of the Peace as well 
within the County Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions as 
without. I will not delay any person of common right, by 
reason of any letter or order from person or persons in 
authority to me directed, or for any other cause whatever, 
and if any letter or order come to me contrary I will proceed 
to enforce the law, such letter or order notwithstanding. I 
will not cause to be directed any warrant by me to be made 
to the parties. But will direct all such warrants to the 
sheriff or constable of the county, or other officers of the 
State, or other indifferent person to do execution thereof, 
and finally, in all things belonging to my office, during con- 
tinuation therein will faithfully, truly and justly, according 
to the best of my (judicial) skill and judgment do equal 
and impartial justice to the public and to the individual, so 
help me God." 



26 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

This paper is signed by James Robertson, John Sevier, 
and twenty-five others. 

A more thoroughly independent, self-acting, and wrong- 
righting government was never formed. As regulators, 
this independent court regulated social and family matters, 
generally on motion. Here are some specimens : 

"On motion that Josiah Baulding should be admitted to 
come in and remain henceforth peaceably in this county, on 
proviso, that he comply with the laws provided for persons, 
being inimical to the State, and have rendered service that 
will expiate any crime that he has been guilty of, inimical to 
this State or to the United States. The Court on consider- 
ing the same grant the said leave." 

This court also exercised jurisdiction in military matters. 
It made orders on motion. Here is a specimen: One 
George Lewis was tried, on motion, for treason in 1779, 
and here is the order : 

"On hearing the facts and considering the testimony of 
the witnesses, it is the opinion of the Court that the defend- 
ants be sent to the district goal. It appearing to the Court 
that the said Lewis is a spie or an officer from Florida out 
of the English Army." 

Again, State vs. Mose Crawford, for high treason : 

"It is the opinion of the Court, that the defendant be 
imprisoned during the present war with Great Britain, and 
the sheriff take the whole of his property into custody, which 
must be valued by a jury at the next Court. And that 
one-half of the said estate be kept by the said sheriff for the 
use of the State, and the other remitted to the family of 
defendant." 

The jurisdiction of the court in criminal matters is well 
exemplified in the following order : 



ANDREW JACKSON. 27 

**On motion it appears that Joshua Wilhams, and a cer- 
tain James Lindly, did feloniously steal a certain bay gelding 
horse from Samuel Sherill, Sr. Ordered that if the said 
Samuel Sherill can find any property of the said Joshua 
Williams, Jonathan Helms and said Lindly, that he take the 
same into his possession." 

This Samuel Sherill was the father of Catherine Sherill, 
known as "Bonnie Kate," who, flying from the Indians, 
jumped over the wall of the Watauga Fort, and was caught 
in the arms of John Sevier, and who afterwards became his 
wife; and he was the great-grandfather of the author. 

The reader can now see the character of men out of which 
Sevier and Shelby made up the army to fight the battle of 
King's Mountain. Ramsey says about the organization of 
this army : 

"Among the refugees, soon after, came Samuel Phillips, 
the parole prisoner, by whom Ferguson sent his threatening 
message, as already mentioned. It reached Shelby by the 
last of August. He immediately rode fifty or sixty miles 
to see Sevier, for the purpose of concerting with him meas- 
ures suited to the approaching crisis. He remained with 
him two days. They came to a determination to raise all 
the riflemen that they could, march hastily through the 
mountains, and endeavor to surprise Ferguson in his camp. 
They hoped to be able, at least, to cripple him, so as to pre- 
vent him crossing the mountain in the execution of his 
threat. The day and place were appointed for the ren- 
dezvous of the men. The time was the 25th day of 
September, and Sycamore Shoals, on the Watauga, selected 
as being the most central point and abounding most in the 
necessary supplies. 

"Col. Sevier, with that intense earnestness and persuasive 
address for which he was so remarkable, began at once to 
arouse the border men for the projected enterprise. In 
this he encountered no difficulty. A spirit of heroism 
brought to his standard in a few days more men than was 
thought prudent or safe to withdraw from the settlement, 



28 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

the whole miHtary force of which was estimated at consid- 
erably less than a thousand men. Something less than 
one-half of that number was necessary to man the forts and 
stations, and keep up scouting parties on the extreme fron- 
tier. The remainder were immediately enrolled for this 
distant service. A difficulty arose from another source. 
Many of the volunteers were unable to furnish suitable 
horses and equipments. The iron hand of poverty checked 
the rising ambition of many a valorous youth who had heard 
of battle, and who longed to follow to the fields some warhke 
chief. 

" 'Here,' said Mrs. Sevier, pointing to her son, not yet 
sixteen years old ; 'here, Mr. Sevier, is another of our boys 
who wants to go with his father and brother to war, but we 
have no horse for him, and, poor fellow, it is a great distance 
to walk.' Col. Sevier tried to borrow money on his own 
responsibility to fit out and furnish the expedition. But 
every inhabitant had expended his last dollar in taking up 
his land, and all the money of the country was thus in the 
hands of the entry-taker. Sevier waited upon that officer 
and represented to him that the want of means was likely 
to retard and, in some measure, to frustrate his exertions to 
carry out the expedition, and suggested to him the use of 
the public money in his hand. John Adair, Esq., late of 
Knox County, was the entry-taker, and his reply was that 
worthy of the times and worthy of the man : 'Col. Sevier, I 
have no authority by law to make that disposition of this 
money. It belongs to the impoverished treasury of North 
Carolina, and I dare not appropriate a cent of it to any pur- 
pose; but, if the country is overrun by the British, liberty 
is gone. Let the money go, too. Take it. If the enemy 
by its use is driven from the country, I can trust that country 
to justify and vindicate my conduct. Take it.' 

"The money was taken and expended in the purchase of 
ammunition and the necessary equipments. Shelby and 
Sevier pledged themselves to see it refunded, or the act of 
the entry-taker legalized by the North Carolina Legislature. 
That was scrupulously attended to at the earliest practicable 
moment. The evidence of it is before the writer in the 
original receipt now in his possession : 

"'Received, Jan. 31, 1782, of Mr. John Adair, entry- 



ANDREW JACKSON. 29 

taker in the County of Sullivan, twelve thousand and seven 
hundred and thirty-five dollars, which is placed to his credit 
on the treasury books, $12,735.00. 

, " 'Per Robert Lanier,, Treas. 

" ^Salisbury District/ " 

The material for making just such an army as Jackson 
had at New Orleans was the best; they were just the men 
to appreciate, and at once accept and fall in under such a 
born leader as Andrew Jackson. But at the time Jackson 
came these men had a beloved and trusted leader in the great 
Indian fighter, the hero of King's Mountain. Sevier was 
then in middle age, a Hugenot (in France the name was 
Xavia). He had seen some service in Virginia as an 
Indian fighter in the regular line, and was known to General 
Washington. He came to the Watauga settlement at the 
same time that Evan and Isaac Shelby came, but afterwards 
settled on the Nolachucky. 

Up to the time Jackson came, Sevier had been the wall 
of defense for the frontier settlements, and had protected 
the women and children in the Watauga Fort against the 
Indian's tomahawk ; he had literally stood guard for eighteen 
years before Jackson came, fighting more than thirty battles 
with the Indians, and always victorious. He was the 
beloved "Nolachucky Jack." 

The great victory at King's Mountain, so unique in its 
conception and so far-reaching in its results, is as much a 
part of Tennessee history as the battle of New Orleans. 
General Washington declared it was the turning point of 
the Revolution, and Mr. Jefferson said : "It was the joyful 
emancipation of that time in the tide of success that termi- 
nated the Revolutionary War with the seal of our independ- 
ence." This is literally true; the British Army had been 
victorious on the Northern line, and Washington was taking 
care of his brave little army as best he could. Cornwallis 
had landed a large army at Charleston, and was moving it 



30 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

Up through the Carohnas in three divisions, devastating the 
country, driving the Whig famihes into the mountains, 
taking the Tory men into the army, and protecting their 
famihes. 

General Ferguson, a distinguished soldier, who was com- 
manding the left wing, had sent word to the Tennessee 
frontiersmen on the Watauga and Nolachucky that if their 
war on the Indians did not stop, he would cross the moun- 
tain and destroy the country. Sevier and Shelby imme- 
diately put rough riders on horses, and in four days every 
man that could carry a gun was notified, and a few days 
later they were all at King's Meadows, where Bristol now 
is, with guns in hand, and a vote was taken whether they 
would stay in the mountain passes and defend the settle- 
ments, or go in pursuit of Ferguson. The vote was unani- 
mous to go and hunt him. Colonels Campbell and Cleveland, 
with about 300 Virginia troops, united with them here, 
making in all 1,200 men with squirrel rifles. 

All on horses they rode through the mountains about 130 
miles, and found Ferguson on King's Mountain, in good 
position for attack or defense. General Berhard, an officer 
under Napoleon, and afterwards an engineer in the United 
States Army, in examining the battleground of King's 
Mountain, says : 

"The Americans by their victory in that engagement 
erected a monument to perpetuate the memory of the brave 
men who had fallen there; and the shape of the hill itself 
would be an eternal monument of the military genius and 
skill of Colonel Ferguson in selecting a position so well 
adapted for defense, and that no other plan of assault but 
that pursued by the mountain men could have succeeded 
against him." 

Sevier immediately after the battle of King's Mountain 
took a hundred men and rode night and day till he reached 



ANDREW JACKSON. 31 

home, having been in a state of alarm about the frontiers 
from the time he left home on the campaign. Reaching 
home, Sevier was met by citizens to make an appeal for 
protection against advancing Indians. They asked him 
how soon he would be ready to go, saying the Indians were 
at the river and would soon be across and in the settlements, 
which meant the tomahawk and the scalping knife for their 
wives and children. The reply was, "As soon as Kate can 
get us some dinner." This great Indian fighter was married 
to his "Bonnie Kate" three weeks before starting on the 
King's Mountain campaign. 

This is an insight to the hero who for twenty-six years 
literally stood guard over the women and children on the 
frontiers, and then was their beloved Governor for twelve 
years, then their honored Congressman, then out in the 
Indian country under an order from President Monroe, 
surveying a line of the Jackson treaty with the Indians, ' 
where he died ; he was buried, and slept until the State he 
had immortalized took up his sleeping dust and brought it , . 
back to its native heath, where, over this dust a third genera- "^^-^ 
tion has erected a monument of granite to remind all coming 
generations that patriotism has its enduring reward. 

When Kate got the dinner for him and his one hundred 
men he had brought back with him, he moved on the Indians 
and met them at the river, fought one of his surprise battles, 
then pursued them as far as the place where Rome, Georgia, 
now is, so crippling them by killing the warriors and burn- 
ing their towns that it gave relief to the people of the 
Watauga and Nolachucky for a whole year. 

Sevier did not get back to the Watauga Fort for three 
months, Campbell and Shelby, with Colonel Cleveland, 
who joined them with a small force, after making a full 
report to General Gates of the campaign, turned and fol- 
lowed and fought on the flank of Cornwallis' army as it 
retreated all the way back to Charleston. 



32 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

The report made by Shelby and Campbell to General 
Gates of their most extraordinary campaign is copied in full 
in "Ramsey's Annals." It shows that in the campaign 
there were Colonel Sevier, Colonel Shelby, Colonel Camp- 
bell, and Colonel Cleveland, all commanding small bodies 
of volunteers. They moved from King's Meadows on the 
26th of September, 1780. No one officer having a right to 
command, they dispatched an express to General Gates, at 
Hillsboro, North Carolina, informing him of the situation, 
and asking him to send a general officer to take command. 
Colonel Campbell was put in command till such officer 
should arrive. They moved rapidly through the mountains 
and found that General Ferguson was encamped in the 
neighborhood of Broad River. Without awaiting the 
return of the messenger, they took 900 of their men, with 
the best horses ; leaving the weak horses and footmen, they 
moved in the night and came on Ferguson on King's Moun- 
tain, where he felt secure. 

No such battle, so unique in its character, has been fought. 
Campbell, Sevier, Shelby, and Cleveland were regarded as 
of equal rank — that is, each had command of his own 
troops, with no superior officer, but each having his place in 
the advance up the mountain. The battle lasted one hour 
and fifteen minutes, and General Ferguson was dead, with 
180 of his officers and soldiers, and the balance were pris- 
oners. And that is all there is of King's Mountain. I 
have given these historic facts from a reliable, and in a 
sense official, source, and mainly for the reason that, as far 
as it may be consistent with the purpose of this work, I shall 
/ uphold the volunteer service for the defense of American 

rights, as against the policy of a large standing army. 
/ The militia, or volunteer service — for practically they 
/ are the same — as against a great standing army, is a ques- 
tion likely to be revived and much discussed in coming 
years. Without prejudice to any other section of the 



ANDREW JACKSON. 33 

country, Tennessee has a history so full of facts that her 
record must play an important part in the discussion. 

General Jackson, with Tennessee soldiers, in the Creek 
War, rendered the Government such efficient service — so 
relieving the situation after the British had burned Washing- 
ton and gained great victories over our army on the Canada 
line, and up to which time despondency prevailed — that the 
Government in its exuberance of gratitude made him a 
Major General in the United States Army. This single act 
by the Government had much to do in producing the spirit 
and prejudice from which his great deeds may never rescue 
his name. 

All great soldiers have had their critics — unkind critics — 
but neither Cromwell nor Charles XII of Sweden, nor any 
other great soldier whose history I have read, has been 
cursed by enemy biographers. Parton's "Life of Jackson" 
and Sumner's "Life of Jackson" give to the world a new 
and cowardly mode of destroying a great man by stealing 
into biographical work under the cloak of friendship, uni- 
versally accorded by the public to biographers. It is true 
Bourienne, who had long been a private secretary of Napo- 
leon's, and had been embittered against the great captain 
for personal unkind treatment, allowed this to crop out in 
the book, but he did not become the spiteful defamer of 
Napoleon. On the contrary, he wrote probably the best 
and most truthful biography of the great Frenchman ever 
written. 

There is no country in the world where citizen soldiers 
as contradistinguished from the army have displayed the 
soldier quality as in the United States. This country has 
been peculiar and exceptional in the absence of a standing 
army and the readiness of the citizens to make a casus belli 
a call to arms. 

It is not surprising, with the infirmity of big men as well 
/ as little ones, that when history records that Colonel Shelby, 



34 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

Colonel Campbell, Colonel Cleveland, and Colonel Sevier, 
with citizen soldiers, in one hour and fifteen minutes killed 
and captured an entire army of superior numbers, leaving 
every single officer or soldier dead or wounded on the field 
that was not taken prisoner or brought away, and that 
'Jackson, with citizen soldiers, 6,000 against 12,000, in 
twenty-five minutes had the British Army on the retreat, 
/ and 1,500 dead on the field — I say it is not surprising, with 
' our infirmities, that the regulars should have a jealous smile 
for the citizen soldier. On the subject of fighting for free- 
dom, or in defense of the flag when it is assaulted, Tennessee 
has a record, and Jackson, for his citizen soldier quality, 
f though made a Major General in the United States Army, 
; is the crowned king of citizen soldier service. The regular 
army, small as it always has been, has done its duty, and if 
its indiscreet friends would suppress their indiscretions, 
with its help the citizen soldiers of this great country would 
take care of the flag and the country's honor. 

It will be the delight of the writer of these memoirs, as 
far as possible, to do justice not only to the great soldier, but 
the private soldier generally, who has argued the question 
better than any pen can do it, by going to the front with his 
gun — simply on notice every time the notice came — from 
King's Mountain to Manila. 

In addition to Mr. Parton, a Mr. William Graham 
Sumner, Professor of Practical and Social Science in Yale 
College, has tried his hand in what is known as "The Ameri- 
can Statesmen Series." As a beginning he sets Mr. Jeffer- 
son and his democracy aside in the following style : 

"Jefferson cannot be said to have had any plan. The 
statesmen of his party tried to act on the belligerents by 
destructive measures against domestic commerce and indus- 
try, chastising ourselves, as Plummer said, 'with scorpions,' 
in order to beat the enemy with whips. And Jefferson has 
remained a popular idol and has never been held to the 



ANDREW JACKSON. 35 

responsibility which belongs to him for his measures. The 
alien and sedition laws were not nearly so unjust and tyran- 
nical as the laws for enforcing the embargo, and they did 
not touch one man where the embargo laws touched hun- 
dreds. New England was denounced for want of patriot- 
ism because it resisted the use of its interest for national 
purposes, but as soon as the secondary effect of embargo on 
agriculture began to be felt, the agricultural States raised a 
cry which overthrew the device. Yet criticisms which are 
justified by the most conclusive testimony of history, fall 
harmlessly from Jefferson's armor of popular platitudes and 
democratic statements. He showed the trait which we call 
'womanish.' His diplomacy, besides being open to the 
charge that it was irregular and unusual, was transparent 
and easily turned to ridicule. It was diplomacy without 
lines of reserve or alternatives, so that in a certain very 
possible contingency it had no course open to it." 

This Hartford Convention apologist is put forward by 
some concerted action to write for the "American Statesmen 
Series," which goes in all the libraries, the life of democ- 
racy's greatest hero. Surely democracy is unfortunate in 
the selection of men to take care of the fame of its great 
idols, Jefferson and Jackson. 

This is about the way this copyist after Parton introduces 
the great general and statesman, whose biography he is 
going to write : 

"Up to the time of the Creek War little was known of 
Jackson at Washington, save that he was a friend of Burr, 
an enemy of Jefferson, and that he had acted in a subordi- 
nate manner at Natchez, reflecting on the Administration, 
and winning popularity for himself. Jackson had made 
the acquaintance of Burr when in Congress. In 1805 Burr 
visited Jackson, and made a contract with him for boats for 
the expedition down the Mississippi." 

Here is the way this biographer introduces the people 
that Jackson came amongst : 



36 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

"The pioneers, so much lauded in song and story, were 
the men who first broke the path into the wilderness, but 
who degenerated the status of their class to do it. They 
became incapacitated for the steady labor of civilized indus- 
try, and when the country became so filled up that game was 
scarce, agriculture a necessity, and law began to be recog- 
nized and employed, the pioneers moved on into the wilder- 
ness. In their habits they were idle and shiftless, and 
almost always too fond of strong drink. The class of 
settlers who succeeded them were little better in their habks, 
although they began to clear the forests and till the soil." 

It would be difficult to put more ignorance into the same 

space. 

No sympathy is or will be asked for the pioneers in the 
Southwest, "so much lauded in song and story," on account 
of the uprising of Mr. William Graham Sumner, Professor 
of Practical and Social Science in Yale. The assault has 
the palliation of passion. It is true the blood had time to 
cool in a legal sense, but the offense was grievous and of a 
twofold nature. If the Professor will accept it, I will, as 
the biographical scribe of General Jackson, apologize for 
the threat to hang the Professor's friends in the Hartford 
Convention. The other offense is more complicated. The 
war of 1812 should not have been brought on by that daring 
pioneer. Clay, without giving New England time to get her 
fishing smacks in before the shooting commenced; and 
General Jackson, the fighting pioneer, was just a little rough 
on his friends at New Orleans. 



ANDREW JACKSON. 37 



CHAPTER III. 

WHEN JACKSON- CAME TO TENNESSEE HE FOUND THE 
HEROES OF THE ALAMANCE AND KING's MOUNTAIN 

THERE THE FIRST BATTLE OF THE REVOLUTION WAS 

NOT LEXINGTON NOR CONCORD, BUT THE BATTLE OF THE 
ALAMANCE IN NORTH CAROLINA THE FIRST DEMO- 
CRATIC GOVERNMENT WAS FORMED ON THE WATAUGA, 
WHAT IS NOW TENNESSEE, 



/ 



\ 



NDREW JACKSON'S lineage is so shadowy and 
the evidence so uncertain, that he can be made a 
Scotch-Irish, or Irish, as his biographer may choose. 
His name, his personal appearance, his high estimate of life's 
obligations, and, finally, his religion, would strongly indi- 
cate "Scotch-Irish." 

While the murder of his grandfather in the massacre of 
Carrickfergus — the father and mother fleeing from British 
oppression and coming to America — the intense feeling of 
the mother against the British when the American Revolu- 
tion came, and the impress she made on her sons, stimulating 
them to go into the army and fight the British when they 
were mere boys, all tend to make him an Irishman, instead 
of Scotch-Irish. 

The home of the Jackson family, it seems to be conceded, 
was Carrickfergus, an old town on the coast of Ireland 
(northern coast), and in the shadowy line that separates 
the north from the south of Ireland. It is only twelve 
miles from Belfast ; it was for centuries known as the "Crag 
of Fergus," where, out on a jutting crag, in the olden time, 
the people had drowned one King Fergus. The informa- 
tion about Carrickfergus being the home of the Jackson 
family comes from the fireside stories of Mrs. Jackson 



38 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

given to her son, and which she was fond of relating, and 
this tradition carries along the historic fact, usually accepted 
by all General Jackson's biographers, of the murder of the 
grandfather, Hugh Jackson, in what they term a great 
massacre. After a very careful reading of the history of 
that ancient town, I am inclined to believe there is confusion 
in the report. It is true a castle was built on the command- 
ing height, and it had been the scene of many a bloody 
struggle from sea and land. It had several times been 
stormed, razed, and rebuilt, but in comparatively modern 
times the story of its history is not clear. But along with 
this uncertainty there comes one from the mouth of Mrs. 
Jackson, and about which she did know — that she and her 
husband fled from Ireland on account of British oppression. 
This was in 1765. 

The early biographers of General Jackson — Reid, Eaton, 
Kendall, and Waldo — made no effort to trace the family 
history. But when Parton, in 1859, was making investiga- 
tions, he went to Ireland, visited Carrickfergus, but could 
find no record, trace, or tradition of the family. There 
was not even a tradition of any family corresponding to the 
Jackson family, as his mother had given it. The place of 
General Jackson's birth, his nativity, has been a matter of 
contention ever since his death, though it is generally 
believed he was born in South Carolina. The several 
biographies written in General Jackson's lifetime all give 
South Carolina as his native State. But one vigorous 
writer and determined historian will have it that he was 
born on the sea when the family was crossing. 

The writer of these sketches delivered an address in 
Washington, on the 8th of January, 1898, to the oldest 
Jackson club in the United States, whose president is 
James L. Norris, and whose father organized the club in 
1829. At the tables were four hundred members, many of 
them old men, and all taking the deepest interest in the 



ANDREW JACKSON. 39 

events discussed. One man, Mr. Lewis, of West Virginia, 
claimed that Jackson was born in North Carohna, but he 
was answered by making the old hero himself a witness, 
when he said in commencing his speech to the nullifiers of 
South Carolina : "Fellow citizens of my native State." 
There is no doubt but that General Jackson lived and died 
in the belief that he was born in South Carolina. 

While Parton's "Life of Jackson" is a book that ought 
not to have been written, yet, in some respects, it is valuable. 
'The author did collect facts about the great soldier which 
other biographers had neglected; and among other things 
he collected a great volume of proof on this subject, which, 
though second-hand, or in a sense hearsay, is nevertheless 
legal proof — family traditions, some of which I here give. 
When General Jackson's father died, he was taken to 
Waxaw graveyard and buried. He had lived from the time 
he came to this country on Twelve-Mile Creek, in North 
Carolina. Curiosity with some, and State pride with others, 
forbid indifference as to the birthplace of a man so widely 
known as a soldier and statesman, and, to settle the dispute 
between North and South Carolina, I shall give the facts as 
gathered up, showing that although General Jackson always 
believed he was born in South Carolina, yet he was undoubt- 
edly born in North Carolina. There is doubt from the 
evidence whether the family left the Waxaw graveyard 
when the father was buried, on Twelve-Mile Creek, in North 
Carolina, to return to the humble home where they had lived 
over two years in North Carolina, or started immediately to 
South Carolina ; but either the night after the burial, or in 
a day or two, the mother and her two little boys — Robert 
and Hugh — started afoot to South Carolina, where Mrs. 
Jackson had a brother-in-law named Crawford, and was 
kindly taken in for the night by a man named McKamy, and 
Andrew Jackson was born there that night. Some papers 
written out after Jackson became famous, by a man called 



40 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

\\ 
Gen. S. E. Walkup, said to be a most estimable citizen, fell 
into the hands of Mr. Parton, which he says he verified by 
going over the ground, which established conclusively that 
General Jackson was born in North Carolina. 

He also took the statements of James Massy, John 
Carnes, James Faulkner, Samuel Wharton, Jane Wilson, 
and James D. Craig. These statements were taken in 1859. 
The witnesses were all old persons, and all had seen and 
known persons who were at the house when he was born, 
or had talked with people who lived in the neighborhood 
where he was born, and knew the facts. The following is 
a sample, some having heard one person talk and some 
another. " 

James Faulkner, second cousin of General Jackson, states 
that: 

"Old Mr. Jackson died before the birth of his son, Gen- 
eral Jackson, and that his widow, Mrs. Jackson, was quite 
poor, and moved from her residence on Twelve-Mile Creek, 
North Carolina, to live with her relations on Waxaw Creek, 
and while on her way there she stopped with her sister, Mrs. 
McKamy, in North Carolina, and was there delivered of 
Andrew, afterwards President of the United States; that 
he learned this from various old persons, and particularly 
heard his aunt, Sarah Lathen, often speak of it and assert 
she was present at his (Jackson's) birth; that she said her 
mother, Mrs. Leslie, was sent for on that occasion, and took 
her (Mrs. Lathen), then a small girl about seven years of 
age, with her, and that she recollected well of going the near 
way through the fields to get there ; and that afterwards, 
when Mrs. Jackson became able to travel, she continued 
her trip to Mrs. Crawford's, and took her son Andrew with 
her, and there remained." ^ 

It was at this old Waxaw Church, filled with wounded 
and dying men — the dread spectacle of war, where Amer- 
ica's greatest warrior took his first lesson in the art that 
sends one man to the King's Castle and another to the for- 



ANDREW JACKSON. 41 

gotten graveyard of forgotten soldiers. From the time 
that Colonel Tarlton and Lord Rawdon came into the 
country, war with all its horror came to the people of that 
section. If not Tories they were driven from home — the 
women and children; the men being in the army on one 
side or the other. It was a section of the country where 
the Tories — those who favored the King — were more 
numerous than in any other part of the South, which intensi- 
fied the war feeling to such an extent that it might be called 
a war under the black flag. Nothing in American war 
exceeds the terrible ordeal through which the poor people 
of that section passed. 

The facts which I have collected from the early biogra- 
phies, gathered up at a time when the evidence could be had, 
mark the Jackson family, in view of its future history, as 
passing through a series of tragedies which has no parallel. 
The mother and her two boys were driven from place to 
place, not knowing where to go. Andrew, with another 
boy, was pursued at one time by British troops, until to 
make their escape they rushed into a swollen stream, 
Andrew crossed and made his escape, but his comrade was 
caught and carried off. When Robert was fifteen and 
Andrew thirteen, they gave their names to a Whig recruit- 
ing officer, which caused their arrest as soldiers. They 
were sent off to Camden and there imprisoned for ijionths 
in a most loathsome jail — starved until they were so ema- 
ciated that they could not stand alone, when their mother was 
allowed to go and see them, which she did, traveling a dis- 
tance of forty miles, probably on foot. 

Through her exertions an exchange was effected, she 
getting her sons and seven neighbors released. When they 
were released, Robert and Andrew were still suffering from 
that dreadful malady, smallpox. They had both been 
treated with great indignity ; they had both received wounds 
at the hands of cruel British officers — Andrew for refusing 



42 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

to black a British officer's boots. They were taken home — 
Andrew barefooted — walking all the way, while Robert was 
riding and held on his horse by the soldiers, whose release 
the mother had procured. On the way home they were 
caught in a great storm, which brought a relapse on both. 
Soon after getting home, Robert died from the disease and 
the wound which the officer gave him on the head. Andrew, 
after hanging between life and death for several weeks, 
recovered. 

He often showed the scar on his head inflicted by the 
British officer. 

During this long suffering of the people reduced literally 
to starvation, Tarleton displayed his genius for cruelty in 
war. It was during this time that Gates suffered his defeat 
on the Plains of Camden, and it was while Robert and 
Andrew were in jail that Rawdon attacked General Green's 
forces in sight of Camden, and which Andrew Jackson could 
see from the window. The fatal want of vigilance, by which, 
while his soldiers were playing games, Rawdon surprised 
him and gained a signal victory, it was often said had much 
to do in making Jackson the most vigilant of officers. He 
was never surprised. Relief only came to this suffering 
people when Sevier and Shelby and Campbell destroyed the 
left wing of Cornwallis' army at King's Mountain, and sent 
the whole army back to the coast. 

The true character of Mrs. Jackson is best illustrated by 
an incident near the close of the war. After Robert had 
died and Andrew had sufficiently recovered to be left, hear- 
ing of the suffering and neglect of the soldiers at Charleston, 
she went — it is believed she walked — to nurse the wounded 
and sick. The account is, that after remaining many 
months, Mrs. Jackson was taken sick with one of the mal- 
adies prevailing in the hospital, and died. The only evidence 
of her death, and the cause of it, is that a small bundle of 
clothing which she had left was packed up and sent back by 



ANDREW JACKSON. 43 

returning soldiers after the war, with some meager account 
of her death. 

At the present time, with the means of travehng and 
carrying news, it is hardly possible to imagine the difficulties 
of getting information in such a country as North and South 
Carolina at that time. In after life General Jackson made 
an earnest effort to find where his mother was buried, but 
failed. When President, he sent a man to Charleston, 
with such scraps of information as he had about her service 
in the hospital and her death, to find, if possible, the place 
of her burial, but not a trace could be found. So the whole 
family are buried in unknown graves. The father was 
buried at the old Waxaw Church graveyard, but there is no 
stone or board to mark the place. General Jackson remem- 
bered the farm on which Robert was buried, but being near 
death at the time, as was supposed, he had no knowledge of 
the spot, and never was able to find it. All that is known 
of Hugh is that he was buried in a soldier's grave. 

Fleeing from British oppression, the father, the mother, 
and the two boys left Ireland in 1765, and after landing at 
Charleston, they found their way up into the poor piney 
woods in North Carolina, where they stopped and made two 
crops. In 1767 the father died. The humble and desti- 
tute character of the home can be well imagined when it is 
stated that, after the burial of the husband and father, the 
mother and two boys probably never again returned to the 
home. Turning away from the saddest and the sorest trial 
that comes in this life, of the many trials that come to pov- 
erty, the separation by death of the family's protector and 
provider, the mother and her two boys started to go to the 
home of a sister in South Carolina. Stopping at the home 
of Mr. McKamy to stay over night, the mother was taken 
sick, and that night or the next, Andrew Jackson was born. 
A few weeks later the mother took the future President of 
the United States in her arms, with the other two little bare- 



44 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

footed boys, and found their way to the home of their kins- 
people in South CaroHna, where they remained until the 
speech that Patrick Henry sent ringing around the world, 
"Give me liberty or give me death," culminated in the great 
struggle for the freedom of mankind. The mother at the 
home of the brother-in-law in South Carolina was accepted 
as a poor relation, but was indeed a servant, while the two 
little boys, Hugh and Robert, and Andrew when he got 
large enough, worked on a farm. It is pretty well estab- 
lished by the early biographers, who had the opportunity of 
collecting the facts, that Andrew, while they were living 
with the Crawford family, did for a time go to what was 
then known as an old field school. 

The early biographers seem to think the mother of the 
great soldier was a more important woman than did Mr. 
Parton. They describe Mrs. Jackson as a woman of fine 
character — that is, though a dependent woman, a strong 
woman ; and in her humble position she gave much atten- 
tion to her boys, and especially taught them in their duties 
as citizens. She was, from all accounts, as much a hater 
of the British as a good woman could be. Her family had 
been literally exterminated or driven out of Ireland. I In 
addition to her own immediate household, three of her sis- 
ters had left the land of British oppression, and, poor as 
M^ere the family, they had all seen something of the blessings 
of the new country where the people, though under British 
rule, were so far away as to have substantial freedom. 
From 1767 to 1776, however, there were constant signs of 
a conflict with England, and no three boys, perhaps, were 
more fully indoctrinated in their duty if the conflict came ; 
so much so, that when the war came the oldest, Hugh, 
though a mere boy, took his gun, went to the front with the 
consent of his mother, and was killed in the Battle of Stono, 
in South Carolina. During the early years of the war, the 
out-of-the-way country — the piney woods along the line 



ANDREW JACKSON. 45 

between North and South Carohna — was not overrun or 
even disturbed by the armies, but in 1780 that devil incar- 
nate, Tarleton, with a large force of cavalry, came into the 
country and rushed upon a detachment of militia and liter- 
ally massacred them, killing 113 and wounding 150 more. 
The wounded were carried to the neighborhood of Waxaw 
Church, many of them severely wounded, and there Mrs. 
Jackson, taking her two boys, Robert and Andrew, took 
charge of the force of women nurses, and showed the noblest 
traits that belong to a woman's nature. 

General Andrew Jackson was the central figure and Ten- 
nessee the theater of a play, which is a drama nowhere else 
seen on the continent of America. To write this play would 
be to write the life of Andrew Jackson, and to write the life 
of Andrew Jackson would be to write the play. 

The people who were in the territory — afterwards formed 
into the State of Tennessee — at the time Jackson, twenty- 
one years old, came, in which he at once became the leader, 
belonged to a race of men worthy of just such a leader as 
Jackson. They had fought the battle of the Alamance in 
North Carolina, an uprising against a tyrant British Gov- 
ernor of the colony, one Trion, in 1772, and which, as the 
British Blue Book, as well as the history of North Carolina, 
shows, was the opening gun of the Revolution, after which 
they crossed the mountain and settled in what is now East 
Tennessee; afterwards, under the leadership of Sevier and 
Shelby, they fought the Battle of King's Mountain, then 
formed a government of their own, as shown in the next 
chapter, and in 181 5, such of them as were able to go to 
war with their sons were under Jackson at New Orleans. 

Before Jackson came, this rear guard had not only shown 
its prowess in war in a series of battles with the Indians, the 
powerful Cherokee, Creek, Choctaw, and Shawnee tribes, 
armed and sent by the British to burn, pillage, and murder 
them, but they had crossed the mountain and had destroyed 



46 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

the left wing of Cornwallis' army, which, under General 
Ferguson, was moving up through the Carolinas, driving 
helpless people before it. At the time Jackson came into 
the territory, this rear guard had a leader, John Sevier, 
courageous, beloved, and a great soldier. But Jackson, the 
born commander of men, as if by common consent, took 
command, was elected major general of the militia over the 
great Indian fighter, Sevier, after having practically organ- 
ized the State of Tennessee. He had taken a hand on the 
race course, at one time with pistol in hand, sternly uphold- 
ing the honor of the race course ag3i4ist his own friends, 
who played jockey on a Kentucky horse. Being major 
general of the militia, he was in position to be tried when 
the Indian and British War of 1812 came. 

Judging by success wherever he drew his sword, his mili- 
tary career is the most remarkable on the page of history. 

The genius that could raise an army by bidding it — 
untrained militia — destroy England's greatest ally, the 
Creek warriors, defy Spain by deposing a Governor that 
permitted the British to make his province a depot of sup- 
plies, and then chastise England's great army, sending what 
was left of it back to old England under orders never to put 
foot on American soil with guns in their hands, which they 
obeyed, and this all with Tennessee volunteers, with squirrel 
rifles in their hands, and coonskin caps on their heads, is the 
second act in a drama that has nothing like it. 

The third great act in this drama is the hero of New Or- 
leans as President of the United States vetoing a National 
Bank bill because it was corrupting Congress and politicians 
generally. The bank had Wall Street behind it. It warned 
Jackson of the panic it would bring and his own ruin, but 
he persisted and deposited the public money in the State 
banks. This daring act of the great Tennessean caused 
an uprising in his home among the men who had known no 
leader except Jackson, men who had rallied under him in 



ANDREW JACKSON. 47 

war and worshipped him in peace. The outcome was the 
organization of the Whig party, the nomination of a Ten- 
nessean, Hugh L. White, for President, in 1836, against 
Jackson's candidate, Mr. VanBuren, which caused the State 
to fairly crackle with fiery outbursts. To oppose Jackson 
was treason; not to support his candidate was little less. 
There came on the stage, born of a new issue, Jackson, and 
the removal of the deposits, a great lot of stump speakers, 
great orators, and from 1836 to i860, a period of twenty- 
four years, Tennessee was the battleground. It developed 
James K. Polk, who became President of the United States ; 
Andrew Johnson, who became President of the United 
States. It developed John Bell, who was made the candi- 
date of the Whigs in i860, but was lost dnd left with only 
four States in the great struggle over secession and war. 

In addition, there was brought to the front as Tennessee 
orators and statesmen, Ephraim H. Foster, Aaron V. 
Brown, Isham G. Harris, Landon C. Haynes, Thomas A. R. 
Nelson, Milton Brown, John Netherknd, Bailey Peyton, 
James C. Jones, William. T. Heiskell, Gustavus A. Henry, 
Meredith P. Gentry, William G. Brownlow, Horace May- 
nard, Nat Taylor, Neil S. Brown, Spencer Jernegan, 
William B. Campbell, William Tjousdale, Hopkins L. 
Turney, A. O. P. Nicholson, John M. Bright, Emerson 
Etheridge — the last two only living at this writing. 

'Taking this list of men, all men of rare gifts and great 
power, some of them great orators, and, considering Jack- 
son's unequaled popularity in the State, the break in the 
ranks over his bank veto, and his taking up Mr. VanBuren, 
is an unparalleled revolution in politics. Jackson, the idol 
of Tennessee, had eight of the twenty-four, and the opposi- 
tion to Jackson — the Whig party — had sixteen. The 
Whigs carried the State in 1836, 1840, 1844, 1848, 1852, 
and in i860. The Democrats carried it in 1856, but now 
Jackson dead fifty-four years is the idol of the State. 



48 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

From start to finish, lasting twenty-four years, there were 
on the poHtical boards of Tennessee twenty to twenty-five 
men of rarest gifts, all favorites, many of them party idols, 
possessing every shade of oratory. Among the whole there 
was not a demagogue leading people by his wits and ways, 
but men possessing every phase of oratorical genius known 
to masters of the art. In the gifts and graces of oratory, as 
a rule, they were on a high plane, nearly all great lawyers, 
many of them educated, with graceful manners and com- 
manding presence. Felix Grundy, John Bell, Ephraim H. 
Foster, Aaron V. Brown, and James K. Polk, all university 
men, had set the pace, and their example was followed, and 
public speaking kept at a high standard. 

Jackson, living or dead, in every scene was the star, the 
great king of the drama. This Jackson play went down in 
war in 1861. 

In writing these memoirs I shall at least gratify a passion 
for reviving memories of the great actor, and the immortal 
"stump speakers," who in fiercest battle array assaulted and 
defended a man who impounded a Louisiana Legislature 
while he whipped a British army. It is said a hive of bees 
will not work without a king, but that it will work under a 
dead king tied up in the top of the gum. Jackson died in 
1845, just after the Clay-Polk scene, in which the men, 
women, and children, from the great mountains to the great 
waters, were moving as if the fire-bells in every city and town 
in the State were ringing. Clay carried the State by 113 
votes. For the Whigs this was enough. With the Dem- 
ocrats it was more than they could stand — that the man 
who made Adams President over Jackson should come into 
Tennessee and carry the State over Jackson's candidate, 
Tennessee's most distinguished son, was an offense com- 
mitted by the Whigs never to be forgotten by Democrats. 
Having witnessed the great play, I shall in these memoirs 
give some sketches of the men who took part in it. 



ANDREW JACKSON. 49 



CHAPTER IV. 

parton's gossip about Jackson's boyhood exposed — 
made a major general in the united states army 
when he had not been a lieutenant his busi- 
ness habits his fidelity in public office his 

fight with bullies at gallatin his growth in 

education from observation, not at school his 

power as a letter writer his dignity and grace 

of manner. 



A 



NDREW JACKSON studied law at Salisbury, 
North Carolina, in 1785-86, in the law office of 
Spruce McKay. Parton says he visited Salisbury 
in 1859 to gather up the facts for the book he was writing, 
and that the first old resident he met said, in answer to a 
question about Jackson, "Andrew Jackson was the most 
roaring, rollicking, game-cock, horse-racing, card-playing, 
mischievous fellow that ever lived in Salisbury." Parton 
gives a conversation with an old colored woman who remem- 
bered Jackson as a boy, but the aged woman is too shady in 
her recollections for the story to be of any value. 

He then gives a Salisbury tradition about McNairy (the 
Judge McNairy who brought Jackson to Tennessee), Jack- 
son, and Crawford, the three law students who, in a most 
disgraceful manner, broke up a ball and caused the ladies to 
leave the ball-room. This is Parton's version. While 
Parton professes not to believe much that was said about the 
waywardness, bad manners, and idle habits of young 
Jackson, he dresses it up in sensational style. It must be 
remembered that seventy-five years had passed when Parton 
went to Salisbury to pick up sensations about the boy whose 
great fame, in manhood, had in forty years built mountains 



50 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

out of mole hills, until a boyish frolic or prank — keeping 
pace with the boy's growth — was as much bigger than 
when it started as Jackson was bigger when President than 
when he led the dance at the ball. 

This growth of great men's foibles as their greatness 
loosens the tongue of the gossiper, is aptly illustrated in the 
case of Mr. Jefferson and Patrick Henry. 

When Wirt wrote the "Life of Patrick Henry," he got 
the facts about Henry's idle habits — ignorance of law, 
sleeping away his days and dancing away his nights, making 
nothing by his profession, and incapable of drawing the 
simplest court paper — from Mr. Jefferson, and he says : 

"Mr. Jefferson was eight or ten years younger than 
Henry, and when on his way to college he spent a few days 
in the town where Henry lived — a man with a wife and 
two or three children, and boarding with his father-in-law, 
who kept a tavern — and while there he gathered up what 
the gossips had to say about the fun and frolic, the happy- 
go-merry life of a married young lawyer who went to the 
balls and danced with the girls." 

What Mr. Jefferson learned there stayed with him, and 
without knowing the other side he gave it to Mr. Wirt, 
saying that but for his father-in-law his family would have 
suffered. These stories did not grow any less with time, 
and affected the entire character of Patrick Henry, and do 
to this day. This was always a surprise to every man who 
found by reading what a profound thinker and great lawyer 
Patrick Henry was. His speech in the Virginia Conven- 
tion opposing the ratification of the Constitution, is regarded 
as among the most profound and powerful logical speeches 
ever made by any man. 

Whoever makes a study of Patrick Henry will find that 
the impression made by Mr. Wirt — based mainly upon 
information given him by Mr. Jefferson — that he was an 



ANDREW JACKSON. 51 

orator simply, will wake up to the surprise that Henry was 
a great student, a profound thinker, and one of the greatest 
lawyers that Virginia ever produced. 

The account book of Patrick Henry has been found — dug 
up from the waste of time; a book nicely kept in his own 
handwriting, showing every lawsuit he had the first four 
years of his practice, every fee he collected from all the 
work he did. During these four years he had i,ioo and 
odd cases ; he made money rapidly and lent his father-in-law 
a considerable amount of money, and his briefs show that 
he argued his cases with great ability. All these facts are 
shown by Mr. Tyler, who has written the life of Patrick 
Henry; and he further shows by Mr. Jefferson's account 
book that, while Henry had i,ioo and odd cases in court 
the first four years of his practice, Mr. Jefferson in the first 
four years of his practice had something over 400 cases. 

This conflict I do not undertake to reconcile, but give it 
from the two lives of the same man. In a legal sense, the 
day-book kept by Henry in his own handwriting would 
have the preference, but readers who are curious about 
reconciling conflicts must decide for themselves as to the 
truth of history. 

As major general of the militia from 1801 to 1814, when 
he was made a Major General in the United States Army, 
General Jackson was most efficient, and out of the militia he 
made a splendid army. While he remained in Congress, 
first in the House and then in the Senate, he was faithful. 
In the convention that made our Constitution in 1796, he 
was the most eflicient worker. As a lawyer, his attention 
to business secured him the collecting business of the mer- 
chants generally, and by which he made the start that grew 
to be a fortune for that time. Parton, himself, shows his 
character as a business man when a merchant, by showing 
that the best men in the city could not borrow money in 
Philadelphia until they got Jackson to sign the paper ; that 



52 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

they were told if they would get Jackson's name, they could 
get what they wanted, and they did get it. 

In the army there was never an idle day ; he looked into 
the details of everything, and was the most reliable corre- 
spondent and voluminous letter-writer of all our public men. 
It is impossible that he could have been the young man that 
Parton describes. Besides, Parton shows that he taught 
school before he went to Salisbury. Jackson himself, while 
President, when reminded by a friend from Salisbury that 
he had once lived there, said, "Yes, I was but a raw lad then, 
but I did the best I could." 

Nothing is more marked in the life of this man of mark 
than his business habits. At one time, early in life, he 
became the surety of a friend at Jonesboro, a man supposed 
to be rich, but who failed shortly before the notes became 
due; it was a Philadelphia house, and for $6,000. It was 
the time of a panic, when it seemed impossible to raise 
money. None of Jackson's friends believed, nor did the 
Philadelphia house believe, he could pay it; but when the 
day came he had every dollar of the money — gold and 
silver — in the city of Philadelphia, and paid the debt. 
This did much to establish a credit, which was as steady all 
through life as his nerve. He quit merchandizing — sold 
out to his partner, John Coffee, taking Coffee's notes for a 
large amount, and when Coffee afterwards married the niece 
of his wife, the night of the wedding he made a present of 
all the notes to the bride. 

When he disobeyed the orders of the Secretary of War at 
Natchez and refused to disband his army, and the Govern- 
ment ordered all the supplies and transportation turned over 
to General Wilkinson at New Orleans, and as Jackson 
believed for the purpose of forcing his volunteers into the 
regular army, he ordered the recruiting officers sent up by 
General Wilkinson, out of the camp, called a council of war 
simply to notify his officers that he was not going to obey 



ANDREW JACKSON. 53 

the orders of the Secretary of War, and when warned of 
the lack of means to march his army back to Nashville, he 
said: "We can live on our horses back to the Tennessee 
line, and the home people will then take care of us." But 
with his own individual credit he supplied transportation, 
bought shoes for the army, and fed his soldiers back to 
Nashville ; he used his credit far beyond his estate, though 
he was then a rich man for a new country. When he died 
he was the owner of several cotton plantations in thxi South, 
and had 150 negro slaves. This is the man that Parton 
says lacked business ability. 

The three young men that studied law in the same office 
at Salisbury — McNairy, Crawford, and Jackson — came 
to Tennessee about the same time. McNairy and Jackson 
traveled together, stopping at Jonesboro for a short time; 
they then went down to Greeneville, and were sworn in as 
lawyers. They reached Nashville, as shown, in October, 
1788. McNairy came with the assurance of friends, who 
had the confidence of the Government at Philadelphia, that 
as soon as the bill, then pending before Congress, creating 
a judicial district for this territory passed, he would be 
appointed judge, and it was well understood between 
McNairy and Jackson that the latter would be district 
attorney. The bill did not pass until the next year, when 
McNairy was made judge and Jackson was made prosecut- 
ing attorney, signing his indictments as "attorney general." 
The judicial system was crude, and cases were tried in what 
corresponded to the county court, after the State govern- 
ment was formed. Criminal cases, and perhaps others, 
were tried by juries. Jackson had two courts in what was 
then called West Tennessee, one at Nashville and one at 
Gallatin, besides one at Jonesboro, one at Greeneville, and 
one at Knoxville. 

There is a well-established incident in the life of Jackson 
during the first years of his term as attorney general which 



54 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

his several biographers failed to pick up. The facts were 
first given me by Judge Jo C. Guild, v^ho said that when he 
came to the bar at Gallatin — which must have been as early 
as 1825 — there was an old court record in the county court 
clerk's office, an entry, the date being shortly after Jackson 
entered upon the duties of his office, in about these words : 
"The Court thanks Andrew Jackson for his brave conduct." 
Curious to know something more about the entry, he heard 
of two old men who were still living who had been members 
of the county court at the time Jackson was attorney gen- 
eral; that he hunted them up and asked them what the 
entry meant, when they gave him this account : 

"That there was a gang of bullies in the county, who on 
public days got up fights and committed other offenses and 
then bullied the court and refused to be tried ; that up to the 
time Jackson went there as attorney general, the justices 
holding the court had been dominated by these bullies ; that 
Jackson had full information before he came of the condi- 
tion ; that he came on horseback, hitched his horse and came 
into court, which had already been opened, and getting his 
docket looked over the cases, and the first thing he did was 
to call one of the cases in which the defendants had refused 
to be tried ; that the defendant came up and said he was not 
going to be tried." 

Judge Guild's remembrance was that the old men who 
had been on the bench at the time said that Jackson in a 
mild way remonstrated with the man about his case, and 
told him that the case had to be tried ; that as an officer he 
was obliged to try it ; that the defendant used offensive lan- 
guage and said no court could try him; that thereupon 
Jackson pulled his saddlebags out from under the table and 
took out two large pistols — such as travelers carried — and 
laid them on the table. The bully grabbed at the pistols, 
and the struggle between him and Jackson led to a general 
fight. The good citizens, being inspired by the courage of 



ANDREW JACKSON. 55 

young Jackson, fell in and whipped out the whole crowd. 
Jackson and his man having fallen out the door, Jackson held 
"to him and brought him back and tried him, and when it 
was all over the Court ordered the clerk to put on the min- 
utes what Judge Guild assured me he had seen : "The Court 
thanks Andrew Jackson for his brave conduct." 

I now have before me Judge Guild's "Parton's Life of 
Andrew Jackson," and on the margin of pages 136-37 of the 
first volume, in Judge Guild's handwriting, is a pencil 
memorandum showing the facts in brief — in substance as 
I have here stated them — and especially giving the words 
of the order of the minutes. 

Judge Guild always maintained that in the early days a 
fighting lawyer was highly appreciated by his clients, and 
that this exhibition at Gallatin had much to do in giving 
Jackson the large collecting business which he had. 

From all the evidence that can be gathered up, and from 
reports that came down to the old men of the present gen- 
eration, Jackson was a most vigilant prosecuting officer. A 
good many of his indictments have been gathered up, and 
they are good common-law indictments. 

The two historians, Ramsey and Putnam, disagree as to 
whether Jackson was in General Robertson's expedition 
against the Indians, known as the Nickajack Campaign, 
1794. Ramsey says he was in the expedition, but Putnam 
in his history of Middle Tennessee says he was not. Parton 
follows Putnam, and makes the following statement, which 
I copy for a double purpose : 

"His absence from the expedition is easily accounted for. 
Besides being in the full tide of a most extensive and labori- 
ous practice, he held an important office under the very 
administration which forbade such expeditions. It was 
his official duty to suppress such expeditions — not jom 
in them. When Tennessee became a territory of the United 
States, the circuit solicitor, naturally enough, became the 



56 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

district attorney. Hence, doubtless, the absence on such 
an occasion of the most warHke personage in the Western 
country." 

"The full tide of a most extensive and laborious prac- 
tice," is difficult to reconcile with the other statement, that 
"he was a failure in everything until he was forty-five years 
of age, and knew no law." 
H In iyi6 General Jackson was in the convention that 

formed me first Constitution for Tennessee. The two dele- 
gates from each county were, under a resolution, to name 
two members to draft the Constitution. Judge McNairy 
and Andrew Jackson were put on the committee for David- 
son County. Jackson was a most efficient member, and 
has the reputation of having suggested the name for the 
State, which was adopted. Mr, Jefferson paid a high com- 
pliment to this convention by saying, "the Constitution 
was the most thoroughly republican of all the State Con- 
stitutions." The delegates from Davidson County were 
James Robertson, Judge McNairy, Andrew Jackson, Joel 
Lewis, and Thomas Hardeman. 

The Legislature that directed the Governor to call the 
convention had fixed the compensation at $2.50 per day, 
but the convention itself made a change and took each $1.50 
per day. The Convention sat twenty-seven days. The 
building was fitted up for the reception of the members at 
a cost of $12 — $10 for seats, the balance for a piece of oil 
cloth to cover the table. 

Shortly before the State was admitted into the Union 
great expense had been incurred by Sevier in fighting the 
Indians, and in disregard of the orders at Philadelphia to 
keep out of a war with the Indians, for the Government 
was impatiently anxious to avoid collisions with them. 
The knowledge that the Government was refusing to pay 
the soldiers who had protected the frontiers was producing 
much feeling, which was intensified by a dispute with the 



ANDREW JACKSON. 57 

Cherokee Indians on a question of boundary, in which it 
was understood the Government at Philadelphia was taking 
sides with the Indians. 

Jackson had by this time made such an impression on the 
70,000 people in the State, that by common consent he was 
elected to the Lower House of Congress. In the fall he 
left, going horseback, and reached Philadelphia in Decem- 
ber, 1796. In the House at the time were Fisher Ames, 
of Massachusetts; Albert Gallatin, of Pennsylvania; James 
Madison, of Virginia; and Edward Livingston^ of New 
York. In after years, and when Jackson became famous 
as a soldier, Albert Gallatin describes him, when he first 
saw him as the member from "the new State of Tennessee," 
as a "tall, lank, uncouth-looking personage, with long locks 
of hair hanging over his face, and a que down his back 
tied with an eel skin ; his dress irregular ; his manners and 
deportment those of a backwoodsman." 

In this narrative I may be allowed to stop and point out 
one of the many phases of character in the life of this 
strange man — rather the growth of character. His edu- 
cation was a lifetime business ; how he acquired sufficient cul- 
ture to start life in one of the learned professions will forever 
remain a mystery. But, entering upon his profession at 
Nashville, he certainly did take rank as a man capable of 
accomplishing results which no other member of the bar 
had reached. Nothing marks his growth more than his 
correspondence; always a voluminous letter-writer, his 
tracks can be seen at almost every step he took. I have 
before me now one of his letters, written four months after 
he came to Nashville ; and another written two years before 
he died — a period of fifty-five years; and I have read his 
letters scattered over that period — letters on public affairs, 
on private matters, written from the camp and the White 
House, letters written to enemies seeking his overthrow, 
and letters written in the loving friendship with a remem- 



58 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

brance of ties formed in scenes never to be forgotten. His 
early letters are crude, showing an awkward strength, inapt 
words, and upon the whole a want of language. Out of 
this he grew rapidly — astonishingly. His letter to the 
Governor of Tennessee in 1813, written on a box for a 
table in the Indian Nation, differing with the Governor in 
the mode of conducting the war against the Creek Indians, 
and which I shall publish in full in its proper place, and 
which, if it did not make new maps, made nearly all the 
history of this country since it was written, is apt in ex- 
pression, masterly in argument, smooth in style, and that 
it is his own production is verified by thousands of other 
letters afterwards written, making, in all, a style that no 
man of his day could imitate. 

Much has been written by his biographer enemies to dis- 
credit his powers, and especially to deny him the credit of 
his own state papers, as well as his almost unequalled claim 
as a letter-writer. These biographers proved too much. 
If this theory be true, then he was blessed through a long life, 
and almost every day, with amanuenses, as was never man 
before. In maturity he was not only a companionable 
man of easy manners, but graceful and elegant. His life 
abounds with surprises. Whether he lacked the graces of 
the gentleman in early manhood, it is true he was put be- 
fore the world as Albert Gallatin put him — an awkward 
specimen of manhood. One of the pleasing incidents of 
his life, noted by his early biographers, is his visit to the 
family of Edward Livingston^ when he reached New Or- 
leans, at the head of his army in the early days of Decem- 
ber, 1814. He was then just turned the meridian of life; 
he had ridden horseback from Mobile, and was still suffer- 
ing from his gunshot wounds inflicted in the fight with the 
Bentons. His wardrobe was somewhat scant, and he was 
tired. He was met on his arrival by the accomplished 
Edward Livingstone, who had served with him in Congress 



ANDREW JACKSON. 59 

at the time Albert Gallatin saw him. Mr. Livingston^ had 
left New York and gone to New Orleans to practice law, 
and was the leading citizen of the then aristocratic city. 
General Jackson knew what was before him ; that the prep- 
aration of the city was a herculean task. 

Mr. Livingston^, who was until the end of the campaign 
his closest and most valuable aid, tendered his services and 
took a place on the General's staff. But the first thing was 
to invite him to dinner, and at once sent a note to Mrs. 
Livingston^' that General Jackson would be out to dinner 
with him. It was the most elegant home in New Orleans, 
and Mrs. Livingstonol was the leader in society. She af- 
terwards told the story herself. She said that when the 
word came that they were to have the backwoods, chicken- 
fighting, horse-racing General to dinner, she had with her 
a number of young ladies — Creoles — the most elegant and 
handsome young ladies of the city, and they were all in a 
flurry about entertaining the rough specimen they knew 
him to be. But when the backwoods General came with 
Mr. Livingston^ the wife met him at the door; she intro- 
duced him to the young ladies; then he led her to a seat, 
engaged her in pleasing conversation, and at the table and 
for a couple of hours he made himself most agreeable, and 
when he left the ladies, in a general confab, decided that he 
was the most elegant and graceful man they had ever seen. 

A little fairy story got into the papers, at a later period, 
coming from the home of Mr. Livingston* — his beautiful 
home — and the nymph-like Creole girls that Mrs. Living- 
ston^ made her companions. 

In one of the battles which General Jackson fought before 
the 8th of January to keep Packinham's army back till he 
was ready to fight — it was the battle of the 23d of Decem- 
ber, fought in the night and a hand-to-hand fight — there 
were many British wounded and left on the field. 

Among others picked up by Jackson's soldiers next morn- 



60 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

ing was an officer who had been terribly wounded, and from 
the wound and exposure was dehrious. When brought into 
the city his rank and general appearance impressed Mrs. 
Livingstone that he was a gentleman, and she had him taken 
to her home, where by the closest attention he recovered 
after months of careful watching. The war was over, but 
a grateful man he returned to his own country. Years 
afterwards, and when Mr. Livingston^ was in the United 
States Senate, and Mrs. Livingstone was a leader in society 
at Washington, this British officer came back to America, 
went to Washington, and of course called to see Mrs. Liv- 
ingston^. On the happy occasion of meeting again the 
woman who had saved his life, he said to her what at first 
surprised her — that in all that kindness there was one sur- 
prise that came to him that was not a pleasure. He said 
that as consciousness was gradually restored he could only 
remember the battle, the shock and the fall from his horse, 
and then the full realization came to him that he died on the 
battlefield; and his eyes falling on the beautiful paintings 
hung on the walls, white as snow, and with beautiful women 
standing about his bed ministering to him, he fully realized, 
as much as he will when the last day comes, that he had 
crossed over the River — had come into the beautiful man- 
sions in the skies, and that the angels were there to bid him 
welcome ; and that when the illusion vanished, and this old 
world took the place of this beautiful vision, and life with 
all its sorrows came back to him instead of a mansion with 
the angels, there came a deep, regretful sense of mortality, 
instead of immortality. 

Asking pardon for this digression, I will return and take 
up Jackson as Albert Gallatin saw him in the House of Rep- 
resentatives in 1796. 



ANDREW JACKSON. 61 



CHAPTKR V. 

HIS RECORD AS A CONSTITUTION MAKER HIS RECORD IN 

LOWER HOUSE OF CONGRESS HIS FIRST SPEECH IN 

FULL ACCOMPLISHED WHAT HE WENT TO DO AND 

RESIGNED THEN IN THE SENATE AND RESIGNED 

JUDGE IN SUPREME COURT^ BUT RESIGNED. 

GENERAL JACKSON'S record in the House of 
Representatives is characteristic. Nothing could 
be more so. All his life his habit was, if he went 
at a thing, to do it, and go at something else. He had been 
elected to Congress because there was a unanimous voice 
that he was the man to put before Congress and have settled 
the claim which the Government had refused to pay for 
more than three years — a claim which meant to pay soldiers 
who had served under Sevier in the Indian wars of 1793. 
This refusal was irritating because of the feeling among the 
people of the new State growing out of the conduct of the 
Government in refusing to protect the frontier settlements 
against continued attacks by the Indians, and especially for 
refusing to give consent to the people of the territory on the 
Watauga, Nolachucky, and Cumberland, to raise an army 
among themselves, and make war on the Indians. So 
frequent, so stealthy, and so cruel were these invasions, that 
perhaps no other frontier settlement would have remained 
and submitted to the sacrifices these people did. Sixty- 
three people in all had been killed in settling Nashville, by 
Indians running in on them at night, besides those killed in 
East Tennessee. An earnest effort was made to get the 
Government, as it did not protect the frontiers, to let the 
people on the frontiers raise an army and defend the help- 
less, but such was the fear of a general uprising of the 



62 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

Indians that the Government refused to give any permission 
to these people to raise an army and defend themselves. 
This was a deplorable condition and keenly felt by the citi- 
zens — the new comers, who had to submit to it. General 
Robertson did, in violation of Government orders, raise an 
army at Nashville and fight the battle at Nickajack, on the 
Tennessee River, near where Chattanooga now is. This 

was in 1794. 

Sevier, in 1793, had raised armies and had been in several 
campaigns against the Indians. 

It was a great compliment to Jackson — then only twenty- 
nine years old — to be unanimously chosen by the people of 
the State to Congress, and secure what they felt had been a 
great wrong to refuse — that is, payment for soldiers in the 
campaigns under Sevier. 

To test the question, it had been arranged that Hugh L. 
White, who had been under Sevier in his campaigns (this 
was he who ran against Mr. VanBuren for President in 
1836, breaking away from Jackson and leading the host that 
formed the Whig party), should make a claim for compen- 
sation. There was no reason why the test should be made 
on young White, who had been a private under Sevier, 
except he had shown marked courage in killing a noted 
Indian chief, King Fisher, in battle. His petition for 
compensation was forwarded to the Secretary of War, who 
sent it to the House of Representatives, and it was referred 
to a committee, who reported all the facts and left it to the 
House, and it came before the Committee of the Whole, and 

was passed. 

The record shows that Mr. A. Jackson rose and said : 

"Mr. Chairman, I do not doubt that by a recurrence to the 
papers presented, it will appear evident that the measures 
pursued on the occasion were both just and necessary. 
When it was seen that war was forced upon the State, that 
the knife and the tomahawk were held over the heads of 



. ANDREW JACKSON. 63 

women and children, and that peaceable citizens were mur- 
dered, it was time to make resistance. Some of the asser- 
tions of the Secretary of War were not founded in fact, par- 
ticularly with respect to the expedition having been under- 
taken for the avowed purpose of carrying the war into the 
Cherokee country. Indeed, those assertions are contra- 
dicted by a reference to General Sevier's letter to the Secre- 
tary of War. I trust it will not be presuming too much 
when I say, that from being an inhabitant of the country, I 
have some knowledge of this business. From June to the 
end of October, the militia acted entirely on the defensive, 
when 1,200 Indians came upon them and carried their 
station, and threatened to carry the seat of government. In 
such a state of things would the Secretary, upon whom the 
executive power rested in the absence of the Governor, have 
been justified had he not adopted the measure he did of pur- 
suing the enemy? I believe he would not. I believe the 
expedition was just and necessary, and that the claim of Mr. 
White ought to be granted. I, therefore, propose a resolu- 
tion to the following effect." 

This is the resolution : 

"Resohed, That General Sevier's expedition into the 
Cherokee Nation, in the year 1793, was a just and necessary 
measure, and that provision ought to be made by law for 
paying the expenses thereof." 

It was proposed to refer the matter to the Committee on 
Claims, to which Mr. Jackson objected, and said : 

"I own that I am not very well acquainted with the rules 
of the House, but from the best idea I can form this would 
be a very circuitous mode of doing business. Why now 
refer it to the Committee on Claims, when all the facts are 
stated in this report, I know not. If this is the usual mode 
of doing business, I hope it will not be referred." 

On the day following he presented a petition from George 
Colbut, a Cherokee chief, who asked compensation for sup- 
plies furnished by his tribe to a detachment of Tennessee 



64 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

volunteers. This petition was referred to the Committee 
on Claims. 

Afterwards the petition of Mr. White again came up. 
The resolution which Mr. Jackson had offered the previous 
day came up, when Mr. Jackson again addressed the House, 
and said : 

"The rations found for the troops of this expedition have 
been paid for by the Secretary of War, and I can see no 
reasonable objection to the payment of the whole expense. 
As the troops were called out by a superior officer, they had 
no right to doubt his authority. Admit a contrary doc- 
trine, and it will strike at the very root of subordination. 
It would be saying to soldiers, 'Before you obey the com- 
mand of your superior officer, you have a right to inquire 
into the legality of the service upon which you are about to 
be employed, and until you are satisfied you may refuse to 
take the field.' This, I believe, is a principle which cannot 
be acted upon. General Sevier was bound to obey the 
orders which he had received, to undertake the expedition. 
The officers under him were obliged to obey him. They 
went with full confidence that the United States would pay 
them, believing that the United States had appointed such 
officers as would not call them into the field without proper 
authority. If even the expedition had been unconstitu- 
tional — which I am far from believing — it ought not to 
affect the soldier, since he had no choice in the business, 
being obliged to obey his superior. Indeed, as the pro- 
visions have been paid for, and as the ration and pay-rolls 
are always considered as a check upon each other, I hope 
no objection will be made to the resolution which I have 
moved. 

"By referring to the report, it will be seen that the Secre- 
tary of War has stated that to allow the prayer of this peti- 
tion would be to establish a principle that will apply to the 
whole of the militia in that expedition; if this petitioner's 
claim is a just one, therefore, the present petition ought to 
go to the whole, as it is unnecessary for every soldier 
employed on that expedition to apply personally to this 
House for compensation." 



ANDREW JACKSON. 65 

Mr. Madison then made a speech urging the payment, 
and the whole matter was referred to a special committee, 
Mr. Jackson being chairman. ' The report was favorable, 
and the committee recommended the payment of $22,816, 
and the report was adopted. jy^ 

This proceeding is taken from the House Journal. The 
speeches here used are a part of the record, simply copied ; 
they are appropriate, short, concise in the statement of facts, 
clear and sound in law — a principle of law clearly stated, 
which has often since been the subject of contention in the 
courts, and is now well established. 

This was a fine beginning, and is noted as the first appear- 
ance in the House of a member from the territory west of 
the Alleghany Mountains. 

During the entire session, this is all he seems to have 
said; he accomplished what he went to do, and did not 
return to the second session. This proceeding, taken from 
the record, will be read with interest by critics whose ideas 
of Jackson's gross ignorance in law and as a speaker taken 
from Parton and Sumner. 

In all the canvasses which General Jackson made for 
President — in 1824, 1828, and 1832 — a great clamor was 
raised against him, as was then said, by his vote to dishonor 
Washington. In these contests it was put in every con- 
ceivable shape to excite feeling among the masses, who 
adored the name of Washington, and nothing in Jackson's 
career gave his friends more trouble than the negative 
vote — one of twelve — on endorsing Washington's 
administration. 

A committee of the House had prepared an extravagant 
(at least extravagant in language) eulogy on Washington's 
administration. In the debate the criticism was mainly on 
superlative adjectives. To some there was a feeling of 
opposition on account of Jay's treaty, and because Wash- 
ington was supposed to sympathize with England in oppo- 



66 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

sition to France, and because the Administration had not 
been pronounced in the struggle the frontiers were having 
with the Indians; but undoubtedly Jackson's vote, as was 
the vote of eleven others, meant Jefferson over Washington. 
A vacancy occurring in the Senate of the United States 

' in 1797, the Governor appointed Jackson to fill the vacancy. 
He was sworn in, never voted on any question, resigned, 

\ and came home. Various causes interfered to postpone the 
business of the Senate, which Jackson did not enjoy. 

f This record in Congress will be a surprise to many people. 

Jackson was in the House alone, sent for a special purpose, 
as is shown. I can submit this record with confidence that 
it will dispel the illusion, and do away with much of the 
unkind criticism attempting to show that Jackson was inca- 
pable of making a speech. His short history in the con- 
vention in Tennessee had satisfied his own people that he 
had great power, and hence he was unanimously chosen by 
the State at large to represent the State in the Congress. 
What I have copied was neither intended to embellish or 
detract from what General Jackson said and did, but I 
invite thoughtful men to look at the record — seeing what 
he meant to do, with what clearness and in how few words 
he prepared his papers, made his speeches, and accomplished 
the purpose for which he went. There is nothing showy 
about what he did, but he did it in a manner, and said what 
he had to say with a perspicuity that may be a lesson even 
to members of Congress of this day. His name never 
appears in the "yeas and nays in the Senate." No record 
is made by Mr. Benton, in the abridgment of any proceeding 
in the Senate for four months after the opening, indicating 
that it was a slow-going concern. Jackson was in the 
House when the vote for President was counted on Febru- 
ary 8, 1797 — Adams, 71; Jefferson, 68; Pinckney, 59; 
Burr, 30; hence, when Jackson came back to the Senate, 
Adams being President, Mr. Jefferson was Vice President. 



ANDREW JACKSON. 67 

In General Jackson's several races for the presidency, 
there was much said about, and much acrimonious discus- 
sion over, a statement of Mr. Webster, as coming from 
Thomas Jefferson, to the following effect: 

"I feel much alarmed at the prospect of seeing General 
Jackson President ; he is one of the most unfit men I know 
of for such a place. He has very little respect for law or 
Constitution. He is an able military man. His passions 
are terrible. When I was President of the Senate he was 
Senator, and he could never speak on account of the rash- 
ness of his feelings. I have seen him attempt it repeatedly, 
and as often choke with rage. His passions are no doubt 
cooler now ; he has been much tried since I knew him, but 
he is a dangerous man." 

This is Mr. Webster's report of a conversation, in 1824, 
two years before Mr. Jefferson's death. 

Nothing gave the politicians more trouble in 1828 and in 
1832, when Jackson was a candidate. The Jackson folks 
attacked Webster for enlarging, and the opposition made 
the most of Jefferson as a witness giving evidence against a 
leader of his own party. 

Mr. Randall, in his "Life of Jefferson," publishes a letter 
from Mr. Jefferson's grandson, who had a better opportu- 
nity of knowing the facts than any other person, in which 
he says : 

"You ask me if Mr. Webster has not too strongly colored 
the Jackson portrait. I cannot pretend to know what my 
grandfather said to Mr. Webster, nor can I believe Mr. 
Webster capable of a misstatement. Still, I think the copy 
of the portrait incorrect — as throwing out all the lights 
and giving only the shadows. I have heard my grand- 
father speak with great admiration of General Jackson's 
military talent. If he called him a 'dangerous man — unfit 
for the place' to which the nation eventually called him, I 
think it must have been entirely with reference to his general 
idea that a military chieftain was no proper head for a 



68 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

peaceful republic, as ours was in those days. I do not my- 
self remember to have heard him say anything about General 
Jackson in connection with the subject, except that he had 
thought his nomination a bad precedent for the future, and 
that a successful soldier was not the sort of a candidate for 
the presidential chair. He did not like to see the people 
run away with the ideas of military glory." 

General Jackson, through a whole lifetime, was a surprise, 
and the surprises occurred at every turn of his life. Coming 
into the State, knowing nobody, having no money, no 
friends to boost him, with defective education, he at once 
took the lead as lawyer ; then merchant of unbounded credit ; 
then United States District Attorney, who discharged his 
duty with fidelity and courage; then a Constitution maker, 
organizing a State that he named and made immortal ; then 
a member of the Lower House of Congress — but when the 
work was finished which he went to do, he quit and went 
home ; then twice in the Senate — once sworn in and 
resigned, but afterwards returned by the appointment of the 
Governor ; then Judge of the Supreme Court six years - — ^ 
never wrote a line in the way of an opinion, and resigned; 
and also all the time he was judge he was major general of 
the militia, beating the most popular man the State ever had 
— John Sevier ; holding all these offices before he was thirty- 
three years old, except the last term in the Senate. 

This wonderful career seems to have been a training for 
the great work before him. As major general of the militia, 
as attorney general, as judge, as a commonwealth builder, 
as member of the House and Senate, as merchant, he came 
to know men as no other man in the country did. When 
the time came for war, he knew the material he had, out of 
which his army was made. 

One of Napoleon's greatest powers — his knowledge of 
men — is shown by his capacity to take his great marshals 
from the ranks. Jackson did more ; he took his great gen- 



V 



ANDREW JACKSON. 69 

erals from the citizens — men who had never carried a gun 
or worn a sword. Coffee and Carroll were his standbys in 
every emergency; they were both taken from the ordinary 
avocations of life, and their swords handed them by Jackson. 

Did he know his men ? Let their records speak as I shall 
unfold their lives. They were as true and steady to the 
great leader as the satellites are that move about the great 
planet. These two men, General William Carroll and 
General John Coffee, in more ways than one help to make 
up and fill in the true life of General Jackson ; indeed, Gen- 
eral Jackson's life would be wholly incomplete without them. 
They were selected by Jackson at the very outset of his 
military career — not as Napoleon selected his marshals, 
from the ranks, because he had no ranks ; he was only form- 
ing an army. A mere outline of the service of Carroll and 
Coffee cannot be given here; it will be shown in detail 
through the work. It was General Carroll and General 
Coffee who, in every crisis — when other friends failed, when 
trusted military leaders doubted, when risks w^ere to be 
taken, when daring deeds were to be performed, when men 
thirsting for his blood assailed him — stood by him and 
said, "Here we are." 

The careful reader of General Jackson's campaigns, when 
he gets through, will find the ejaculatory inquiry, speaking 
to himself and asking. How could Jackson have done with- 
out Carroll and Coffee? 

One of the many writers soon after Jackson's military 
career closed, Mr. Waldo, in 1818, wrote "Memoirs of 
Jackson," and in describing the trying and critical period 
in his life, says of Coffee: 

*Tt would be a task highly grateful to the author, would 
prescribed limits of this work permit, to give a brief sketch 
of this patriotic and accomplished officer. It is enough to 
say that he carried his active military life with Andrew 
Jackson, and that in the most disastrous period of the Creek 



70 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

war, when by jealousy of some, the intrigue of others, the 
General was left almost alone in a wilderness of blood- 
seeking barbarians, Coffee remained faithful among the 
faithless till the first conquering stroke was given. He 
followed the no less desperate fortunes of General Jackson 
to New Orleans, when he, with his general and his gallant 
army, acquired laurels which will never fade until men 
cease to appreciate exalted patriotism." 

Whoever shall go along with me through the coming 
history of this great soldier and see what General Coffee, 
his cavalry commander, was to him, will not be surprised 
to know that one day when the great warrior had come to 
be President of the United States and in the White House, 
he sat down to his table, pulled his hat over his eyes, and 
wrote : 

"Sacred to the Memory of 
General John Coffee, 
Who departed this Life 
7th day of July, 1833, 
Aged 61 Years. 
"As a husband, parent, and friend, he was affectionate, 
tender, and sincere. He was a brave, prompt, and skillful 
general; a distinguished and sagacious patriot; an unpre- 
tending, just, and honest man. To complete his character, 
religion mingled with these virtues her serene and gentle 
influence, and gave him that solid distinction among men 
which detraction cannot sully, nor the grave conceal. 
Death could do no more than to remove so excellent a being 
from the theater he so much adorned in this world, to the 
bosom of God who created him, and who alone has the 
power to reward the immortal spirit with exhaustless bliss." 

This strong, beautiful epitaph, every word of which is 
typical of the great spirit whose love of a friend outlived 
the grave, is on the tombstone of General Coffee in the 
family graveyard near Florence, Alabama. 

Alabama and Tennessee ought to erect a monument to 
him. With Tennessee troops, by a dash that neither Murat 



ANDREW JACKSON. 71 

nor Forrest ever excelled, when Alabama was a territory, he 
crossed the river, met the Indians in the wilderness, and 
saved the women and children on the frontiers of the two 
States from a most horrible massacre. 

The Indians had just massacred 400 people, mostly 
women and children, at Fort Mimms ; and under the teach- 
ings of Tecumseh to regain their country by killing all as 
they came to them, and to die themselves rather than sur- 
render, were moving on the settlements, when Coffee, in 
advance of the infantry, met the first advance at the Ten 
Islands on the Coosa River, and engaged them. Every 
man of them stood his ground ; not one of them asked for ^ 
quarter, and it is the only battle in American history, or ( 
perhaps in any pitched battle, where every man on one side 
died fighting. Coffee's motto was : 'Tf every woman and 
child must die, then it is a war to the death." 

Mrs. Royal, in letters from Alabama (written from 
Huntsville, Alabama, in 181 8), gives perhaps the best 
description of his personal appearance which we have : 

"Last evening I had the pleasure of seeing the renowned 
soldier and companion of General Jackson. This hero, of 
whom you have heard so much, is upward of six feet in 
height, and proportionately made. Nor did I ever see so 
fine a figure. He is thirty-five or thirty-six years of age. 
His face is round and full, and features handsome. His 
complexion is ruddy, though sunburned; his hair and eyes 
black, and a soft serenity suffuses his countenance. His 
hair is carelessly thrown one side in front, and displays one 
of the finest brows. His countenance has much animation 
while speaking, and eyes sparkle, but the moment he ceases 
to speak it resumes its wonted placidness, which is a charac- 
teristic of Tennesseans. In General Coffee I expected to 
see a stern, haughty, fierce warrior. You look in vain for 
that rapidity with which he marched and defeated the 
Indians at falleseehatchie, nor could I trace in his counten- 
ance the swiftness of pursuit and sudden defeat of the 
Indians again at Umuckfaw, much less his severe conflicts 



72 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

at the head of his men at New Orleans. He is as mild as 
the dewdrop, but deep in his soul you may see very plain 
that deliberate, firm, cool, and manly courage which have 
crowned him with glory. He must be a host when he is 
aroused. All these Tennesseans are mild and gentle, except 
when they are excited, which it is hard to do ; but when they 
are once raised, it is victory or death." 

An interesting sketch of this great cavalry officer has been 
furnished me by his accomplished granddaughter. Miss 
Eliza Coffee, of Florence, Alabama, which will serve me a 
good part in the letters to come. 

General Coffee left a large family of children, one of 
whom, Alexander Donelson Coffee, who lives in the country 
near Florence, Alabama, is one of the best farmers and most 
highly respected citizens of Alabama. Mrs. Rachel Diaz, 
who died in the city of Nashville, Tennessee, a few years 
ago, was a daughter. She was the wife of our venerable 
and esteemed citizen, A. D. Diaz. 

When it is remembered that the thirty-three years of 
Jackson's life were the child-like steps, the just-beginning- 
to-walk of a man who made bigger strides than any man 
before him, or since, has done on the continent, the reader 
will not be surprised when I say that it has taken more mate- 
rial, ink, and paper, to supply the demand for information 
about him than for any other man in our history. When 
Parton, in 1859, set about to write the great American's 
life, simply as a money-making business, he procured the 
most extensive book-house in New York to get up a list of 
books, pamphlets, and papers which had been printed and 
published for circulation, wholly or in large part devoted to 
General Jackson, and the list has been preserved, and it now 
lies before me. There had been at that time 396 such pub- 
lications, a very large part of them devoted in whole or in 
part, like Parton's and Sumner's works, to making 
unfriendly criticisms. 



ANDREW JACKSON. 73 

A persistent and wicked effort, by stealthy means, has 
been made to impress the students of biography with a 
sense of withdrawal from association with the great hero, 
on account of vices which becloud a man that might have 
been great in history. This thinly veiled, but plainly mali- 
cious, purpose has, like a thief in the night, stolen into our 
schools, both public and private, until right here in Tennes- 
see the boys now growing up are in doubt about placing the 
hero of New Orleans. 

The great State of Tennessee (I had almost said) had 
better have no public schools than have the rising generation 
poisoned against the heroes who drove the Indians with 
scalping-knives from the cabins of our ancestors, and the 
British back across the waters, with orders not to come back 
again with guns. 

Book-makers and school teachers, who have smiling faces 
with malicious intent to depreciate the name of Jackson — 
either because he has immortalized the service, or because 
he is a Southern idol — should be dealt with like Jackson 
dealt with the Spanish Governor at Pensacola, who made a 
supply depot of his city for the British — that is, deposed. 
To the men who have intelligence and patriotism, it is grat- 
ifying to know that Jackson is one of the two or three men 
who are getting bigger as time goes on. His namesakes, 
all in one line of battle, could whip any army that any one 
country could send against us. New Jackson clubs are 
constantly being formed, and it now looks like every city in 
the Union will have a Jackson club. 

"Jackson County," in Tennessee, was the first recognition 
of the name "Jackson" in a county or town as a mode of 
honoring the great Tennessean. The name now occurs on 
the map i8i times, more by far than any other name except 
Washington, whose name appears on the map 198 times, 
and, in addition to the 181 Jacksons, the name of "Hickory" 
appears 40 times. Franklin is honored on the map 136 



74 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

times; Jefferson, 91; Monroe, y6; Madison, 64, and 
Adams, 41. 

The life which I am writing is being prepared with the 
feeling that some one, some Tennessean, should at least with 
a friendly pen give those who want to know the truth a 
correct statement of the man whose name — even without 
friends, and in spite of enemies — will go down through all 
the coming generations. A writer or biographer in one of 
the large magazines has suggested that there ought to be 
three biographies written of a man — one by a friend, one 
by an enemy, and one by a historian. Jackson has certainly 
had more than one enemy to write ; and surely Reid, Eaton, 
Waldo, and Kendall were friends. But the wrongs done 
the then lifeless soldier and statesman by his post-mortem 
writers could not then be dealt with, and their several biog- 
raphies, while truthful in facts, were in a sense eulogies. 
The injury done the great Tennessean has been done like 
most cowardly acts are — after the maligned had disap- 
peared ; in this case, after death. Jackson was not without 
his infirmities. These infirmities, mostly of temper, together 
with a confidence and courage in his own convictions, are 
so rare and so extraordinary, that small men have thought 
them vices. Parton, however, after magnifying these 
traits of character into vices, not satisfied, turns and says : 

"One or two friends by flattery could lead him anywhere," 
and stigmatizes in coarse language his conduct in his per- 
sonal difficulties. 

The exalted patriotism of the man — his confidence and 
courage in obeying a conscience which had not been touched 
by dishonor, and the utter abandonment of self when country 
or helplessness was involved, and the amendment which he 
made to the treaty of Ghent — more enduring than the 
treaty itself, settling for all time that neither England nor 
France nor any other country could impress our seamen on 
American ships — together with a courage at the head of 



ANDREW JACKSON. 75 

the nation which has no precedent and no imitators, will 
outlive all the books that a Parton or a Sumner can write. 

But the object of these sketches is to give the truth to the 
unwary and careless reader, and to children in the schools 
whose minds are being poisoned. 



76 LIFE AND TIMES OF 



CHAPTER VI. 

COLONEL BENTON DRAWS HIS PICTURE SKETCH HOW HE 

MET DIFFICULTIES AND OVERCAME THEM THE OFFICES 

HE RESIGNED HOW JACKSON FAILED TO BE APPOINTED 

BY THE GOVERNMENT WHEN HE WAS GREATLY NEEDED 

HOW HE PROVED HIS WORTH JACKSON's PROMPTNESS 

IN RAISING AN ARMY COLONEL CARROLL. 

RESERVING for future chapters the private and 
family life of General Jackson, and of consequence 
the man in his nature — what he was to his neighbors 
and his friends — in short, what the great soldier and Pres- 
ident was as a citizen, and which no writer on Jackson's life 
would dare pass without special attention, I shall now com- 
mence on a series of chapters including his military exploits. 
If in long continued military service, with many battles and 
great sacrifice of life, he falls below Napoleon and Welling- 
ton, in action far-reaching in its effect — working out the 
destiny of his country — he surpassed both; and in a short 
period, with limited means, brought results with less sacrifice 
of life, which surpassed any general of modern times. 

As a civilian, he made so much history that Mr. Benton's 
"Thirty Years in the Senate" is in a large measure taken up 
with Andrew Jackson and his deeds. In the career of the 
p-reat soldier and President there is no name, no man whose 
life from the beginning to the end is so interwoven with that 
of Andrew Jackson as that of Thomas H. Benton. Mr. 
Benton commenced practicing law at Columbia and Franklin 
when Jackson was in full practice at Nashville, and the pre- 
sumption is that they often met before their long public 
intercourse commenced. Some years ago Judge Fleming, 
of Columbia, wrote a sketch of Mr. Benton, who had kept 



ANDREW JACKSON. 77 

a ferry and studied law in Williamson or Maury County (I 
do not remember which), and Judge Fleming says there was 
one entry on the docket at Columbia showing that Benton 
attended the court there. That entry was in 1808, and was 
that "Thomas H. Benton is fined one dollar for swearinp- in 
open court." 

Mr. Benton and Mr. Parton entirely disagree in reference 
to Jackson's entrance into military life, as to how it was 
brought about. But Mr. Benton speaks from personal 
knowledge, and his statement should be accepted. 

In 1855, on the presentation of General Jackson's sword 
to Congress, Mr. Benton spoke at length, and, among other 
things, said : 

"He had difficulties to surmount, and surmounted them. 
He conquered savage tribes and the conquerors of the con- 
querors of Europe ; but he had to conquer his own govern- 
ment first, and did it, and that was for him the most difficult 
of the two ; for, while his military victories were the result 
of a genius for war and brave troops to execute his plans, 
enabling him to command success, his civil victory over his 
own government was the result of chance and accidents, and 
the contrivances of others, in which he could have but little 
hand and no control. I proceed to give some views of the 
inside and preliminary history, and have some qualifications 
for the task, having taken some part, though not great, in all 
that I relate. 

"Retired from the United States Senate, of which he had 
been a member, and from the supreme judicial bench of his 
State, on which he sat as judge, this future warrior and 
President — and alike illustrious in both characters — was 
living upon his farm, on the banks of the Cumberland, when 
the war of 181 2 broke out. He was major general in the 
Tennessee militia, the only place he would continue to hold, 
and to which he had been elected by the contingency of one 
vote — so close was the chance for a miss in this first step. 
His friends believed that he had military genius, and pro- 
posed him for the brigadier's appointment, which was 
allotted to the West. That appointment was given to 



78 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

another, and Jackson remained unnoticed on his farm. 
Soon another appointment of general was allotted to the 
West. Jackson was proposed again, and again was left to 
attend his farm. Then a batch of generals, as they were 
called, was authorized by law — six at a time — and from 
all parts of the Union; and then his friends believed that 
surely his time had come. Not so in fact. The six appoint- 
ments went elsewhere, and the hero patriot, who was born 
to lead armies to victory, was still left to the care of his 
friends, while incompetent men were leading our troops to 
defeat, to captivity, to slaughter; for that is the way the 
war opened. The door to military service seemed to be 
closed and barred against him; and was so, so far as the 
Government was concerned. 

"It may be wondered why this repugnance to the appoint- 
ment of Jackson, who, though not yet greatly distinguished, 
was still a man of mark, had been a Senator and a Supreme 
Judge, and was still a major general, and a man of tried and 
heroic courage. I can tell the reason. He had a great 
many enemies, for he was a man of decided temper, had a 
great many contests, no compromises, always went for a 
clean victory or a clean defeat; though placable after the 
contest was over. That was one reason, but not the main 
one. The Administration had a prejudice against him on 
account of Colonel Burr, with whom he had been associated 
in the American Senate and to whom he gave a hospitable 
reception in his house at the time of his western expedition, 
relying upon his assurance that his designs were against the 
Spanish dominion in Mexico, and not against the integrity 
of this Union, These were some of the causes — not all — 
of Jackson's rejection from Federal military employment. 

"I was young then, and one of his aides, and believed in 
his military talents and patriotism ; greatly attached to him, 
and was grieved and vexed to see him passed by when so 
much incompetence was preferred. Besides, I was to go 
with him, and his appointment would be partly my own. I 
was vexed, as were all of his friends, but I did not despair, 
as most of them did. I turned from the Government to 
ourselves, to our own resources, and looked for the chapter 
of accidents to turn up a chance for incidental employment, 
confident that he could do the rest for himself if he could 



ANDREW JACKSON. 79 

only get a start. I was in this mood in my office, a young 
lawyer, with more books than briefs, when the tardy mail 
of that time, 'one raw and gusty day,' in February, 1812, 
brought an Act of Congress authorizing the President to 
accept organized bodies of volunteers, to the extent of fifty 
thousand, to serve for one year, and to be called into service 
when some emergency should require it." 

Mr. Benton then shows how he, on a cold day, went out 
to see General Jackson, and laid the plan before him; that 
he was struck with it, and adopted it. Then he says : 

"While this was going on an order arrived from the War 
Department to the Governor (Willie Blount) to dispatch 
fifteen hundred militia to the Lower Mississippi, the object 
to meet the British, then expected to make an attempt on 
New Orleans. The Governor was a friend to Jackson and 
his country. He agreed to accept his three thousand volun- 
teers instead of the fifteen hundred drafted militia. He 
issued an address to his division. I galloped to the muster- 
ground and harangued the young men. The success was 
ample. Three regiments were completed — Coffee, William 
Hall, Benton, the colonels." 

From the beginning of General Jackson's military career 
to the end his promptness in action is little less than mar- 
velous. The war was declared on the 12th of June, 181 2; 
the news is supposed to have reached Nashville on the 20th 
of the same month. On the 25th of June, General Jackson 
offered to the Secretary of War his service and 2,500 men. 
The Secretary of War replied on the nth of July, and said 
the President received the tender of General Jackson's serv- 
ices, with 2,500 men, with peculiar satisfaction, and further 
said the President cannot withhold an expression of his 
admiration of the zeal and ardor by which they are ani- 
mated. But it was the first of November before General 
Jackson was ordered into service. Hull's great failure on 
the Canadian line caused the Government to apprehend the 



80 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

landing of troops at New Orleans, where General Wilkinson 
was in command without an army, and Jackson was ordered 
to go down the river and reinforce General Wilkinson. 

On the 14th of November, General Jackson issued the 
following address to the soldiers, the volunteers : 

/■" "In publishing the letters of General Blount, the major 
general makes known to the valiant volunteers who have 
tendered their services everything which is necessary for 
them at this time to know. In requesting the officers of 
the respective companies to meet in Nashville on the 21st 
instant, the Governor expects to have the benefit of their 
advice in recommending the field officers, who are to be 
selected from among the officers who have already volun- 
teered. Also to fix upon the time when the expedition 
shall move, to deliver the definite instructions, and to com- 
mission the officers in the name of the President of the 
United States. Companies which do not contain sixty-six, 
rank and file, are required to complete their complement to 
that number. A second lieutenant should be added where 
the company contains but one. 

"The major general has now arrived at a crisis when he 
can address the volunteers with the feelings of a soldier. 
The State to which he belongs is now to act a part in the 
honorable contest of securing the rights and liberties of a 
great and rising republic. In placing before the volunteers 
the illustrious actions of their fathers in the War of the 
Revolution, he presumes to hope that they will not prove 
themselves a degenerate race, nor suffer it to be said that 
they are unworthy of the blessing which the blood of so 
many thousand heroes has purchased for them. The theater 
on which they are required to act is interesting to them in 
every point of view. Every man of the Western country 
turns his eyes intuitively upon the mouth of the Mississippi. 
He there beholds the only outlet by which his produce can 
reach the markets of foreign nations or the Atlantic States. 
Blocked up, all the fruits of his industry rot upon his hands ; 
open, he carries on a commerce with all the nations of the 
earth. To the people of the Western country is then pecu- 
liarly committed, by nature herself, the city of New Orleans. 



LIFE AND TIMES OF 



81 



At the approach of an enemy in that quarter, the whole 
Western world should pour forth its sons to meet the invader 
and drive him back into the sea. Brave volunteers, it is to 
the defense of this place, so interesting to you, that 'you are 
now ordered to repair. Let us show ourselves conscious of 
the honor and importance of the charge which has been com- 
mitted to us. By the alacrity with which we obey the 
orders of the President let us demonstrate to our brothers in 
all parts of the Union that the people of Tennessee are 
worthy of being called to the defense of the Republic. 

"The generals of brigades attached to the Second Divis- 
ion will communicate these orders to the officers command- 
mg volunteer companies with all possible dispatch, using 
expresses, and forwarding a statement of the expense to the 
major general. Andrew Jackson, 

"Major General Second Division T." 
"November 14, 1812." 

The assembling of the troops on the day named — the 
loth of December — is notable in the fact that, although the 
weather was extremely cold — one of two or three occa- 
sions when the Cumberland River was frozen over — 2,000 
men, obeying the Governor's call and Jackson's address, 
appeared to be mustered into service. As the weather began 
to get cold the quartermaster, Maj. William B. Lewis, pro- 
vided a large supply of wood. Nashville being a mere 
village, there was no means of sheltering the troops, and to 
save the men from freezing immense fires had to be made 
on the ground set apart as a camping ground. With all 
that could be done the suffering was great, for scarcely any 
tents had been provided. But the occasion was one of a 
thousand, afterward occurring, for Jackson to prove to his 
soldiers what he was. He did not leave the matter of 
taking care of the soldiers to his efficient quartermaster, but, 
with the thermometer below zero, he spent the whole night 
with his men, encouraging them, and collecting from every 
source possible wood for fires, even taking down fences and 
burning the rails to keep his men from freezing. So that 



82 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

in one night his men found out what sort of general they 
were under. 

The occasion furnished General Jackson an opportunity 
of showing what his enemy biographers call his infirmities. 
After tramping in the snow, said to be several inches deep, 
tearing down fences and helping the soldiers to build fires, 
at about six o'clock in the morning he came into the hotel 
to hear a man, who had slept in a warm bed, abusing the 
authorities for not providing for the soldiers before they 
came, ready to shed tears over the hard fate of the privates. 
He said it was a shame that men should have been out all 
night freezing, when the officers were snugly laid away in 
warm beds. 

This was more than the soldier could stand, who had 
not had time to examine and see if his toes were frost 
bitten ; and a bystander, who was present and lived to be an 
old man, handed the scene that ensued down to posterity 
with a good deal more detail than I can afford to write 
down, but he said the hotel smelt of brimstone, and the 
room was lighted up with blue blazes — and that fellow, who 
was so sorry for the poor soldier out in the cold was himself 
soon out in the cold, and that he kept going. 

The building of the boats for the trip down the river 
required some time, perhaps twenty or thirty days. In the 
meantime an incident occurred, related to me by General 
Moore, of Lincoln County, which is worth perpetuating. 
I think it was at this time, but the facts I remember dis- 
tinctly. General Moore was a young captain in Jackson's 
army. He had a company from Fayetteville, in which 
was Davy Crockett, a private, an awkward, boy-like soldier. 
General Moore said his company became somewhat in- 
subordinate in idleness, and he made known to his men that 
he would not remain captain of a company that would not 
obey his orders. And he was going to put the facts before 
the General and ask him what to do. And when he started 



ANDREW JACKSON. 83 

to the General's headquarters, Davy Crockett blabbed out 
that he was going along and see what the old General said. 
So he and his private called on the General ; he made known 
his trouble, when the General said to him: 

"Captain, I have but little to say to you. It is this: 
Don't you make any orders on your men without maturing 
them, and then you execute them, no matter what it costs ; 
and that is all I have to say." But when they got back to 
the company the men were anxious to know what the Gen- 
eral said, and Crockett thus spoke: "The old General told 
the captain to be sure he was right, and then go ahead." 

He said afterwards, during the campaign, the phrase 
was used on all occasions, and it spread through the army. 
The phrase is now used among all English-speaking people, 
and perhaps among others. It has always been attributed 
to Davy Crockett, and I am sure from the circumstantial 
detail with which it was given to me by General Moore, 
\/ho was always much esteemed by General Jackson, that 
these are the facts of its origin. 

In this army was a young man who had but recently 
come to Tennessee from Pennsylvania, William Carroll, 
who, though he had never seen service, had some knowledge 
of military tactics; and being the only man in the army 
who did, Jackson made him brigade inspector, and by hard 
work and close application under the direction of the com- 
manding general, who knew as well what discipline was to 
an army as any man that ever commanded an army without 
experience in actual service, he soon had an army ready for 
service. Waiting at Nashville, and the long delay at 
Natchez, and not a day lost. Col. Carroll had a well- 
equipped army. As will be shown, Jackson's appreciation 
of this young Pennsylvanian brought upon him one of the 
most serious of all his personal difficulties, but it only tied 
him closer to the young man, who proved to be in the war 
more than even Jackson could hope for. His life and history 



y 



84 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

are indelibly associated with Tennessee, and the service he 
rendered Jackson in Indian wars and at New Orleans will 
go along with the great soldier as long as men love to read 
of patriotism and heroic deeds. He was not only re- 
nowned as a great soldier, but he made one of the best 
Governors the State ever had, and held the office twelve 
years. 

Before the infantry, under Col. Benton and Col. Hall — 
fourteen hundred men in all — embarked on the boats, Jack- 
son put Col. Coffee in command of the cavalry — six hun- 
dred and seventy men — ordering him to go through the 
Indian Nation and meet the river expedition at Natchez. 

The voyage down the river, under the General himself, 
was one of great exposure and hardship. The winter was 
a severe one. The boats being hurriedly built, were 
scarcely sufficient to contend with the ice. Several accidents 
occurred, and one boat was lost, but at the end of thirty- 
nine days the army reached Natchez with every man that 
had left Nashville, and all well and strong. Jackson, 
reaching Natchez, found Coffee with his command all safe, 
after a hard trip through the wilderness without roads. 

On leaving Nashville, Colonel Coffee wrote his father-in- 
law, Capt. John Donelson, a letter, from which I make an 
extract. This letter shows how a great soldier can be 
bound to the home he leaves behind with its dear ties : 

"A sense of duty and justice have compelled me to ad- 
dress this line, together with its enclosure. I did not see 
the propriety of such an act until very late, and even now 
it may seem to you unnecessary. Yet when I reflect on 
the uncertainty of the life of man, and the time I am about 
to leave my native country for a more unhealthy climate, 
independent of any dangers I may be thrown in by a state 
of war, I should be remiss from my duty were I not in the 
most equitable manner to make provision for my family 
were it to be my lot not to return again. I have drawn up 



ANDREW JACKSON. 85 

an instrument expressive of my wishes, and which I enclose 
to you. This, if it please the Almighty that I never return 
to my beloved wife and infant daughter, is my last will 
and testament, which, I shall rest assured from your paren- 
tal goodness, you will have executed without deviation as 
far as practicable." 

When Jackson started on his campaign from Nashville, 
he wrote the Secretary of War as follows : 

"I have the pleasure to inform you that I am now at 
the head of 2,070 volunteers, the choicest of our citizens, 
who go at the call of their country to execute the will of 
the Government ; who have no constitutional scruples, and, 
if the Government orders, will rejoice at the opportunity 
of placing the American eagle on the ramparts of Mobile, 
Pensacola, and Fort St. Augustine, effectually banishing 
from the Southern coasts all British influence." 

From the time Jackson reached Natchez, early in Jan- 
uary, to the last days of March, the General in command, 
all the officers and private soldiers were not only in a state 
of suspense, but in a state of deepest anxiety to know what 
the suspense meant. Not a word of explanation came from 
the War Department or from General Wilkinson as to what 
caused the halt, what was to be done with them, or whether 
there had been a change in the war policy of the Govern- 
ment. The letters of General Coffee to his family mani- 
fested the greatest anxiety as to what it all meant. An- 
drew Jackson wrote letters to General Wilkinson and to 
the Secretary of War, suggesting that he be allowed to go 
with his army to the Canada line, where disasters were 
coming thick and fast. He could easily increase his force 
from Tennessee to 5,000 men, and with his Tennesseans 
he would undertake to wipe off the stain occasioned by the 
recent disasters. This state of things continued until about 
the last days of March. The following order from the 
Secretary of War reached General Jackson: 



86 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

"War Department,, February 6, 1813. 

"Sirs: The causes of embodying and marching to New 
Orleans the corps under your command have ceased to 
exist; you will, on the receipt of this letter, consider it as 
dismissed from public service, and take measures to have 
delivered over to Major General Wilkinson all the articles 
of public property which may not have been put into its 
possession. 

"You will accept for yourself and corps the thanks of 
the President of the United States. 

"I have the honor, etc., 

"J. Armstrong." 

"Major General Jackson/' 

"I well remember the day," said Col. Benton in the 
speech already quoted, "the order came. The first I knew 
of it was a message from the General to come to him at 
his tent; for, though as colonel of a regiment I had ceased 
to be aide, yet my place had not been filled, and I was sent 
for as much as ever. He showed me the order, and also 
his character in his instant determination not to obey it, 
but to lead the volunteers home." 

I had it from the lips of General Moore, who was present, 
that General Jackson called a council of war and the offi- 
cers assembled; the General walked in and said: "I have 
called you together to tell you that I am not going to obey 
this order of the Secretary of War." 

Colonel Benton in the same speech says : 

"We have all heard of his responsibilities — his readiness 
to assume political responsibilities when the public service 
required it. He was now equally ready to take responsi- 
bility of another kind — moneyed responsibility, and that 
beyond the whole of his fortune. He had no military 
chest, not a dollar of public money, and three thousand 
men were to be conducted five hundred miles through a 
wilderness country and Indian tribes without a great outlay 



ANDREW JACKSON. 87 

of money. Wagons were wanted, and many of them for 
transport of provisions, baggage and the sick, so numerous 
among the new troops. He had no money to hire teams ; 
he impressed; and at the end of the service gave drafts 
upon the Quartermaster General of the Southern Depart- 
ment for the amount. 

"The wagons were ten dollars a day, comnig and gomg. 
They were numerous. It was a service of two months; 
the amount incurred was great ; he incurred it, and, as will 
be seen, at imminent risk of his own ruin. This assump- 
tion on the General's part met the first great difficulty, but 
there were lesser difficulties, still serious, to be surmounted. 
The troops received no pay ; clothing and shoes were worn 
out • men were in no condition for a march so long and so 
exposed. The officers had received no pay, did not expect 
to need money, had made no provision for the unexpected 
contingency of large demands upon their own pockets to 
enable them to do justice to their own men. _ But there 
was a patriotism without the camp as well as withm." 

General Jackson wrote caustic letters to the Secretary 
of War, which, however. Col. Benton says, he (Benton) 
softened in some sense. But General Jackson always be- 
lieved he saw the sly hand of Wilkinson in the whole thing, 
and produced a letter from Wilkinson, saying: "You still 
have it in your power to render an effective service by 
urging your men to enlist in the regular army," and he 
asked Jackson to do this in a general order. 

Jackson gave Wilkinson to understand that he was under 
a pledge to the mothers and wives of his soldiers to look 
after them with a fatherly care until he brought them back 
safely, if alive, and that he was going to march them back 
home. He drove Wilkinson's recruiting officers out of 
the camp, telling them if they appeared in camp again they 
would be drummed out. 

General Jackson said : "As between an open defiance of 
the orders of my superior, the Secretary of War, and my 
duty to the private soldier who put himself under me, I 



88 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

shall risk all the consequences of being dishonored and 
losing my entire estate and much more. I shall take care 
of my men and carry them back home." 

He had the credit to raise the money to do it; the 
Government was sullen and refused to reimburse him for 
many months. He was without transportation, which, 
out of his own pocket, he improvised. He had 150 
sick men, a large part of them extremely ill. He had three 
horses which he gave to the sick, and himself walked with 
his men. A soldier said in moving along, "The old man 
is tough." "Yes," said another, "as tough as hickory." 
"Yes," said a third, "an old hickory at that," and this is 
the way he got the name of "Old Hickory." 

He made the march in good time, and when he reached 
Nashville the army was received with great ceremony. 
The soldiers went away to their several homes, and from 
one end of the State to the other, in every cabin, around 
every fireside, Jackson was simply an idol. 

This is an exhibition of courage in duty coupled with a 
money responsibility; in fact, a risk that men in public life 
rarely take. General Jackson manifestly believed the pur- 
pose was — and he had a strong suspicion that General 
Wilkinson had manipulated the scheme for delay, making 
conditions which would coerce the enlistment in the army 
under him. The subsequent facts pretty conclusively show 
that Jackson was right. Keeping his promise and standing 
firmly by the private soldiers, in disobedience of the order 
from the Secretary of War, was what made it possible for 
him afterwards to raise armies when needed. 

The fight with Col. Thomas H. and Jesse Benton, about 
which so much has been said, is intimately connected with 
General Jackson's disobeying orders of the Secretary of 
War. It has been generally said and believed that General 
Jackson sent Col. Benton on horseback to Washington, to 
reconcile the Government to his conduct. But Col. Benton 



ANDREW JACKSON. 89 

himself distinctly states that he went to Washington on his 
own business, but undertook and did finally come to an 
understanding with the Government, and got a settlement 
that relieved General Jackson of the embarrassment occa- 
sioned by his disobedience. The public mind has rested on 
the belief that Jackson, being in great trouble with the Gov- 
ernment, sent Benton on to restore friendly relations with 
the Government, and that he did it, and while he was gone 
Jackson became the second of Carroll in a duel between 
Jesse Benton, Colonel Benton's brother, and Colonel Car- 
roll, which on its face was a bad showing for Jackson. The 
facts are that Carroll had become a great favorite with Jack- 
son, creating much jealousy with a set of men who did not 
propose to divide up the capital they had in Jackson's favors, 
and in those fighting times they got two fellows, one right 
after the other, to challenge Carroll, both of whom he re- 
fused to fight because they were not gentlemen. But 
finally they worked on Jesse Benton until he challenged 
Carroll. This Carroll accepted, but such was the vindic- 
tiveness and jealousy that it was difficult for Carroll to get 
a second. When this became manifest he went to the 
Hermitage, waking Jackson up in the night, and asked him 
to be his second. To this General Jackson objected, giving 
the reasons, among others the difference in their ages, and 
his relations with Col. Benton, but finally said he would go 
with him to the city and see if he could not settle it. Going 
to the city promptly he saw Jesse Benton and urged him to 
withdraw the challenge, explaining to Benton, as he un- 
derstood it, that there was really nothing between them to 
fight about. Jackson left understanding the challenge 
would be withdrawn, but influences were brought to bear 
on Benton that made him recede from his agreement with 
Jackson and press the fight. 

Then again Carroll called on Jackson, who again pro- 
tested, but he was now fully satisfied that there was a com- 



90 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

mon purpose to get clear of Carroll ; and when Carroll told 
him that his enemies were saying that they would run him 
out of the country, Jackson said, "Well, I can tell you one 
thing, they will not run you out of the country while An- 
drew Jackson stays in it." So Jackson became his second 
and the duel was fought. 

Col. Thomas H. Benton was still at Washington, and re- 
ceived letters from his brother and friends strongly con- 
demning Jackson, and putting the blame on him for the 
duel. Of course Col. Benton was much exasperated, and 
on all occasions denounced Jackson in most violent lan- 
guage, threatening to chastise him. This he continued on 
the road home, all of which reached Jackson's ears. 

Benton was shot in the hip and Carroll was hit, a ball 
striking one of his thumbs. 

Mr. Parton came to Nashville in 1859, forty-six years 
after the fight between Jackson and the Bentons, which 
took place on the north side of the Square, at the lower 
end of the City Hotel, and got the facts about the fight 
from the old men who witnessed it. His account of the 
difficulty covers many pages in his book. I give the fol- 
lowing extract: 

"Benton wrote to Jackson, denouncing his conduct in 
offensive terms. Jackson replied, in effect, that before ad- 
dressing him in that manner Col. Benton should have in- 
quired of him what his conduct really had been, and not 
listened to the tales of designing and interested parties. 
Benton wrote still more angrily ; he said that General Jack- 
son had conducted the duel in a 'savage, unequal, unfair 
and base manner.' On his way home through Tennessee, 
especially at Knoxville, he inveighed bitterly and loudly, 
in public places, against General Jackson. Jackson had 
liked Thomas Benton, and remembered with gratitude his 
parents, particularly his mother, who had been gracious 
and good to him when he was a 'raw lad' in North Caro- 
lina. Jackson was, therefore, sincerely unwilling to break 



ANDREW JACKSON. 91 

with him and manifested a degree of forbearance, which 
it is a pity he could not have maintained to the end. 

"He took fire at last, threw old friendship to the winds, 
and swore by the eternal that he would horsewhip Tom 
Benton the first time he met him. 

"There were two taverns on the Public Square of Nash- 
ville, both situated near the same angle, their front doors 
being not more than a hundred yards apart. One was the 
old Nashville Inn, at which General Jackson was accus- 
tomed to put up for more than forty years. There, too, 
the Bentons, Col. Coffee, and all of the General's particular 
friends were wont to take lodgings whenever they visited 
the town, and to hold pleasant converse over a glass of 
wine. The other tavern was the City Hotel. On reaching 
Nashville, Col. Benton and his brother Jesse did not go to 
their accustomed inn, but stopped at the City Hotel to 
avoid General Jackson, unless he chose to go out of his 
way to seek them. This was on the 3d of September. 
In the evening of the same day it came to pass that General 
Jackson and Col. Coffee rode into town, and put up their 
horses, as usual, at the Nashville Inn. Capt. Carroll called 
in the course of the evening, and told the General that an 
affair of the most delicate and tender nature compelled him 
to leave Nashville at dawn of day. 

" 'Go, by all means,' said the General. T want no man 
to fight my battles.' 

"The next morning, about 9, Col. Coffee proposed to 
General Jackson that they should stroll over to the post- 
office. They continued to walk to the postoffice, got their 
letters, and set out on their return. This time, however, 
they did not take the short way across the square, but kept 
down the sidewalk which led past the front door at which 
Col. Benton was posted. As they drew near they observed 
that Jesse Benton was standing before the hotel, near his 
brother. On coming up to where Col. Benton stood. Gen- 
eral Jackson suddenly turned toward him, with his 
whip in his hand, and, stepping up to him, said : 

" 'Now, you d— d rascal, I am going to punish you. 
Defend yourself.' 

"Benton put his hand into his breast pocket and seemed 
to be fumbling for his pistol. As quick as lightning. Jack- 



92 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

son drew a pistol from a pocket behind him, and presented 
it full at his antagonist, who recoiled a pace or two. Jack- 
son advanced upon him. Benton continued to step slowly 
backward. Jackson closed upon him with a pistol at his 
heart, until they had reached the back door of the hotel, 
and were in the act of turning down the back piazza. At 
that moment, just as Jackson was beginning to turn, Jesse 
Benton entered the passage behind the belligerents, and, 
seeing his brother's danger, raised his pistol and fired at 
Jackson. The pistol was loaded with two balls and a large 
slug. The slug took effect in Jacksons' left shoulder, shat- 
tering it horribly. One of the balls struck the thick part 
of his left arm and buried itself near the bone. The other 
ball splintered the board partition at his side. The shock 
of the wounds was such that Jackson fell across the entry 
and remained prostrate, bleeding profusely. 

''Coffee had remained just outside meanwhile. Hearing 
the report of the pistol, he sprang into the entry, and seeing 
his chief prostrate at the feet of Col. Benton, concluded that 
it was his ball that had laid him low. He rushed upon 
Benton, drew his pistol, fired, and missed. Then he 
'clubbed' his pistol, and was about to strike, when Benton, 
in stepping backward, came to some stairs of which he was 
not aware, and fell headlong to the bottom. Coffee, think- 
ing him hors dc combat, hastened to the assistance of his 
wounded General. 

"The report of Jesse Benton's pistol brought another 
actor on the bloody scene, Stokely Hays, a nephew of Mrs. 
Jackson, and a devoted friend to the General. He was 
standing near the Nashville Inn when he heard the pistol. 
He knew well what was going forward, and ran with all 
speed to the spot. He, too, saw the General lying on the 
floor weltering in his blood. But, unlike CofTee, he per- 
ceived who it was that had fired the deadly charge. Hays 
was a man of giant size and giant's strength. He snatched 
from his sword-cane its long and glittering blade, and made 
a lunge at Jesse with such frantic force that it would have 
pinned him to the wall had it taken effect. Luckily the 
point struck a button, and the slender weapon was broken 
to pieces. He then drew a dirk, threw himself in a par- 
oxysm of fury upon Jesse, and got him down upon the floor. 



ANDREW JACKSON. 93 

Holding him down with one hand, he raised the dirk to 
phinge it into his breast. The prostrate man seized the 
coat cuff of the descending arm and diverted the blow, so 
that the weapon only pierced the fleshy part of his left arm. 
Hays strove madly to disengage his arm, and in doing so 
gave poor Jesse several flesh wounds. At length, with a 
mighty wrench, he tore his cuff from Jesse Benton's con- 
vulsive grasp, lifted the dirk high in the air, and was about 
to bury it in the heart of his antagonist, when a bystander 
caught the uplifted hand and prevented the further shed- 
ding of blood. Other bystanders then interfered; the 
maddened Hays, the wrathful Coffee, the irate Benton were 
held back from continuing the combat, and quiet was re- 
stored. 

"Faint from the loss of blood, Jackson was conveyed to 
a room in the Nashville Inn, his wound still bleeding fear- 
fully. Before the bleeding could be stopped, two mat- 
tresses, as Mrs. Jackson used to say, were soaked through, 
and the General was reduced almost to the last gasp. All 
the doctors in Nashville were soon in attendance. All but 
one of them, and he a young man, recommended the ampu- 
tation of the shattered arm. 'I'll keep my arm,' said the 
wounded man, and he kept it. 

"The gastly wounds in the shoulder were dressed, in the 
simple manner of the Indians and pioneers, with poultices 
of slippery elm and other products of the woods. The 
patient was utterly prostrated with the loss of blood." 



94 LIFE AND TIMES OF 



CHAPTER VII. 

Jackson's friends and enemies reveal two classes — 
next he jacksonized the country colonel 

burton's KNOWLEDGE OF JACKSON THROUGH LIFE 

THE ONE VOTE THAT DID SO MUCH FOR JACKSON 

CARTWRIGHT AND BLACKBURN^ THE GREAT PREACHERS, 
AS FRIENDS OF JACKSON. 

IN my last chapter I left General Jackson on a conch 
soaked with blood, a bullet in his arm and his shoulder 
shattered, the result of a most desperate fight with 
Col. Thomas H. Benton and his brother, Jesse Benton. 

General Jackson's life after he was shot in the Benton 
fight — commencing nineteen days after the fight — is the 
nearest a realistic romance, a continuous romance — abso- 
lutely continuous — without the loss of a day, that can be 
found in that of any public man. From that day to the 
end of his presidency — twenty-three years — he never 
touched anything without Jacksonizing it, and upon the 
whole so Jacksonized the country that, as soldier, states- 
man, citizen, he ranked all men — Jacksonized the army, 
Jacksonized the highest office the American people could 
confer on him, and all with such a sublime sense of duty and 
foresight that with his friends he was an idol, and with his 
enemies he was the bull's eye for thousands of book-makers, 
magazine and newspaper scribblers, whose productions 
would make a small library. 

With great floods of defamation, he went out of the high 
office strong enough to name two of his successors. Be- 
fore entereing upon his wonderful career, dividing the en- 
tire country into two classes — Jackson's friends and Jack- 



ANDREW JACKSON. 95 

son's enemies, I propose to devote a chapter to his true 
character as gathered from the highest sources. 

Of all the witnesses whom the Jacksonian period fur- 
nished, Thomas H. Benton is the most reliable. When 
quite young he saw much of General Jackson in his own 
home, knew his domestic life — what he was to his wife, 
what he was to his slaves, what he was to his guests, what 
he was in all his private business relations, in what esteem 
he was held by his neighbors. He knew him as Judge of 
the Supreme Court ; he knew him as an attorney at the bar. 
He was involved in the most deadly of all Jackson's per- 
sonal conflicts. He was under him as an officer in the army, 
and saw him in a condition where, of all his trials, the test 
of sublime courage reached the highest point — where for 
the private soldier under him, who had no favors to bestow, 
he put up as a test and a forfeit his commission as general, 
and his entire estate, all to be swept away if the Government 
did not forgive his disobedience of orders. Then he had 
watched him as Governor of Florida in dealing with the 
Spaniards ; and, above all, he had been in the United States 
Senate, serving at one time with Jackson in the Senate, 
and then carefully noted every step he took as President 
through eight years, which was a conflict with big men and 
little ones. No other man had such an opportunity to 
know his real character, and no other man who lived 
through Jackson's life of public service had the capacity 
and courage to so truly note facts of history. The estimate 
of General Jackson's true character, though lengthy, as 
found in Benton's "Thirty Years in the Senate," should be 
carefully read by all who are interested in the truth of 
history of a man who had more friends and worse ene- 
mies than any other man of his time, and almost of any 
other time. I make the following quotations from this 
lengthy review by Mr. Benton of Jackson's real character: 



96 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

"The first time I saw General Jackson was at Nashville, 
Tenn., in 1799 — he on the bench, a Judge of the Superior 
Court, and I, a youth of seventeen, back in the court. He 
was then a remarkable man, and had his ascendant over all 
who approached him — not the effect of his high judicial 
station, nor of the senatorial rank which he had held and 
resigned, nor of military exploits (for he had not then been 
to war), but the effect of personal qualities, cordial and 
graceful manners, elevation of mind, undaunted spirit, gen- 
erosity, and perfect integrity. In charging the jury in the 
pending case, he committed a slight solecism in language, 
which grated on my ear and lodged in my memory, without, 
however, derogating in the least from the respect which he 
inspired. ... I soon after became his aide, he being 
a major general in the Tennessee militia, made so by a 
majority of one vote. New Orleans, the Creek Campaign, 
and all other consequences, dated from that one vote." 

It would not be proper to pass over this one vote without 
an explanation, as it throws much light on General Jack- 
son's career. Nothing in his life, as far as I know, is more 
illustrative of that powerful magnetism of his nature than 
this one vote. Jackson was elected major general of the 
militia of the State over John Sevier, the great Indian 
fighter, who, up to that time, was the idol of the volunteer 
soldiers of Tennessee, but Jackson was elected major general 
of the militia over him by one vote in the whole State, and 
this, as Colonel Benton says, this one vote, perhaps, decided 
the whole of Jackson's career — including the Creek War, 
the Battle of New Orleans, and his presidency, and, in fact, 
made the Southwest a new political map. t 

Mr. Benton further says : 

"After that I was habitually at his house, and as an in- 
mate had opportunities to know his domestic life when it 
was least understood and most misrepresented. He had 
resigned his place on the bench of the Superior Court, as 
he had previously resigned his place in the Senate of the 



ANDREW JACKSON. 97 

United States, and lived on a superb estate, twelve miles 
from Nashville, then hardly known by its subsequent name 
of "The Hermitage," a name chosen for its perfect accord 
with his feelings, for he had then actually withdrawn from 
the stage of public life, and from a state of feeling well 
known to belong to great talent when finding no«theater for 
its congenial employment." 

Mr. Benton then proceeds to show what a careful farmer 
he was, and what a successful merchant he was, and in 
describing more particularly his person, and to some ex- 
tent his public life, he goes on to say: 

"His temper was placable, as well as tractable, and his 
reconciliations were cordial and sincere. Of that my own 
case was a signal instance. After a deadly feud I became 
his confidential adviser — was offered the highest marks of 
his favor, and received from his dying bed a message of 
friendship, dictated when life was departing and he would 
have to pause for breath." 

In this graphic and deeply interesting statement of Mr. 
Benton he does not do himself and General Jackson full 
justice. They had first met in the Senate after their diffi- 
culty. They there met as friends, with no apologies and no 
explanations. Then, it is difficult to see how General Jack- 
son would have passed the eight years as President without 
being literally, or rather politically, torn to pieces by Mr. 
Calhoun, Mr. Clay, and Mr. Webster, and their followers 
in the Senate, if Colonel Benton had not been there; and 
if ever a man on this earth had a faithful friend, 'it was 
Benton in the Senate in defense of General Jackson and his 
various positions taken through that period ; and when Gen- 
eral Jackson came to die at the Hermitage, about the last 
word he said was (pulling the head of William B. Lewis 
down to him, whispered) : "Tell Colonel Benton that I am 
grateful in my dying moments." 

/ ■ 



98 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

Colonel Benton proceeds in this extended statement: 

"There was a deep-seated vein of piety in him — unaf- 
fectedly showed itself in his reverence for divine worship 
and constant encouragement of all the pious tendencies of 
Mrs. Jackson, and when they both afterwards became mem- 
bers of the church, it was the natural and regular result of 
their early and cherished feelings. He was gentle in his 
house, and alive to the tenderest emotions. I give one in- 
stance: I arrived at his home one wet, chilly evening in 
February, and came upon him at twilight sitting alone 
before the fire, a lamb and a child between his knees. He 
started a little, called a servant to remove the innocents to 
another room, and explained to me how it was. He said 
the child had cried because the lamb was out in the cold, 
and had begged him to bring it in, which he had done to 
please the child. This was his little adopted son, then two 
years old. The ferocious man does not do that, and even 
though General Jackson had his passions and his violence, 
they were for men and his enemies — those who stood up 
against him, and not for women and children, or the weak 
and helpless, for all whom his feelings were those of pro- 
tection and support." 

This entire detail of the character of General Jackson is 
worth turning to in the "Thirty Years in the Senate," and 
reading it in full, but it is too long for the limits of this 

work. 

Really, the way to know General Jackson is to listen to 
men of his time who knew him, and heard him talk. In 
the early period of this century there were some great 
preachers — among them the most noted was Peter Cart- 
wright and Gideon Blackburn. They were men of great 
force and power with the people, and with deep religious 
convictions. They were both known to General Jackson 
and appreciated by him. In his sorest trials in the Creek 
War, when his starving men deserted him, in addition to 
the letter he wrote to the Governor, he wrote the following 



ANDREW JACKSON. 99 

letter to Gideon Blackburn, and one in substance the same to 
Peter Cartwright. Nothing that I know of shows General 
Jackson's great wisdom and knowledge of men and how to 
do things, better than his interesting these two great 
preachers when he wanted an army to continue the Creek 
campaign : 

"Reverend Sir: — Your letter has just been received. I 
thank you for it; I thank you most sincerely. It arrived 
at a moment when my spirit needed such a support. 

"I left Tennessee with an army as brave, I believe, as any 
general ever commanded. I have seen them in battle, and 
my opinion of their bravery is not changed. But their 
fortitude — on this, too, I relied — has been too severely 
tested. Perhaps I was wrong in believing that nothing 
but death could conquer the spirits of brave men. I am 
sure I was, for my men I know are brave; yet privations 
have rendered them discontented; that is enough. The 
expedition must nevertheless be prosecuted to a successful 
termination. New volunteers must be raised to conclude 
what has been so auspiciously begun by the old ones. 
Gladly would I save these men from themselves, and insure 
them a harvest which they have sown; but if they will 
abandon it, to others it must be so. 

"You are good enough to say, if I need your assistance 
it will be cheerfully afforded. I do need it greatly. The 
influence you possess over the minds of men is great and 
well founded, and can never be better applied than in sum- 
moning volunteers to the defense of their country, their 
liberty, and their religion. While we fight the savage, 
who makes war only because he delights in blood, and who 
has gotten his booty when he has scalped his victim, we 
are, through him, contending against an enemy of more in- 
veterate character and deeper design, who would demolish 
a fabric cemented by the blood of our fathers and endeared 
to us by all the happiness we enjoy. So far as my exer- 
tions can contribute, the purposes both of the savage and 
his instigator shall be defeated; and so far as yours can, I 
hope, I know, they will be employed. I have said enough ; 
I want men, and want them immediately." 



L.of 



r 



100 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

This was certainly a unique step for a general at the 
head of an army to take. It was true he was then left in 
the wilderness with 109 men only — all the others had gone 
back to get something to eat. It was then he wrote that 
wonderful letter ; that is, as I believe, a key to all his state 
papers, because written in the wilderness under circum- 
stances which show he must have written it himself, and at 
once assures his capacity to write anything. But these two 
letters to these two great preachers, with their power over 
the people at that time, probably did more to raise him a 
new army than did the letter to the Governor. They were 
his devoted friends through life, and he was theirs. 

One of the most unique, interesting, and stirring books 
that found its way into public print among the people of the 
wild West is the "Autobiography of Peter Cartwright." 
Among the very many readable things in the very readable 
book is an incident in which General Jackson figures. The 
whole sketch takes several pages, but I epitomize, and it is 
about this : 

"Peter Cartwright and Gideon Blackburn were attending 
a Methodist Conference at Nashville in the early days. 
They were both conspicuous as preachers — most conspicu- 
ous — for, indeed, they were the advance guard in a new 
country of that class of preachers that took such an active 
part in the country's affairs at that time, and shortly after. 
Peter Cartwright says, in his autobiography, that the 
preachers, generally, and the people wanted to hear Black- 
burn and himself preach, but it soon became apparent that 
the bishop was afraid to risk either of them; but, under 
the pressure of the people, he says, the bishop appointed 
him to preach at the Presbyterian Church, but said to him 
when he told him of his appointment, 'Now, Cartwright, I 
want you to be just as polite as possible, and respectful to 
those Presbyterians as you can. Don't say anything about 
doctrine, and don't say anything that will be unpleasant, 



ANDREW JACKSON. 101 

but just go along- and be a decent man.' He says he re- 
plied to the bishop, and said : 'Well, sir, you have sent me to 
preach to them Presbyterians, and I am going to preach 
my own sermon, and I tell you that I will give them Pres- 
byterians something on the damnation of infants — a part 
of their doctrine — which they will remember.' He says 
thereupon the bishop changed him and ordered him to 
preach at the Methodist Church, and that when he got 
started in his sermon, with the preacher in charge sitting be- 
hind him. General Jackson came in at the door — the church 
crowded and the aisles packed — and stopped for a moment, 
not seeing his way. He says at that time the preacher in 
charge touched his coat-tail and said to him in a whisper, 
'General Jackson has just come in.' He says at that he 
felt somewhat indignant and blabbed out, 'What is that if 
General Jackson has come in? In the eyes of God he is 
no bigger than any other man; and I tell General Jackson 
now, if he don't repent and get forgiveness for his sins, God 
Almighty will damn him just as quick as he would a guinea 
nigger.' He says General Jackson looked him up the next 
day, and told him he liked that sort of brave preaching." 

Among the many incidents yet to be recorded in the life 
of the great soldier, there are none more touching and more 
effectually opens to the public eye the great, big, generous 
heart of Andrew Jackson than the pathetic story of Lin- 
coyer. When General Coffee checked the advance of the 
Creek Indians — the murderers of 400 women and children 
at Fort Mimms, at Tallushatches (now known as Talla- 
hassee), or the Ten Islands, killing every warrior engaged 
in the battle, the battle being fought in the town — an Indian 
woman was accidentally killed, and when found by General 
Coffee after the battle there was on her breast an infant 
only a few days old. All the women and children, and 
among them this infant, were taken to General Jackson's 
headquarters. The story given him by General Coffee 



102 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

touched his great big heart. In his chest was a small 
supply of sugar, with which he kept the child alive. The 
Indian women refused to nurse him, saying: "All his kin 
are dead; let him die." In a few days General Jackson 
sent the child back to Huntsville, perhaps a hundred miles, 
with instructions to employ a nurse at his expense. This 
was early in November, 1813, and so the Indian boy was 
nursed and kept alive until General Jackson came home in 
181 5, the acknowledged victor over the British army, and 
a great nation singing his praises in every home. But he 
remembered the Indian baby and sent for it ; had it brought 
to the Hermitage, where he became the object of tender care 
by both the General and Mrs. Jackson. The General named 
the boy Lincoyer. For fifteen years the Indian boy was the 
pet at the Hermitage ; then the General took him to the city 
and put him at a trade, the same trade that he had learned 
when a boy, that of harnessmaker. The Indian boy worked 
in the shop, but spent his Sundays at the Hermitage, until 
his health failed. Then he went back to the home and 
care of Mrs. Jackson, who nursed him until he died of con- 
sumption, at the age of seventeen. When he died the great 
conqueror of Packinham wept as if the boy had been his 
own son. 

That General Jackson's life, stormy as it was, had an 
anchor in the wife he ever adored, whose tenderness was 
much more to him than the anchor is to the great ship in the 
storm, is a fact that no biographer could afford to omit. That 
you may really know something of this noble and deeply 
pious woman, and to be able to estimate her influence on the 
man of iron, I shall take frequent occasion to make reference 
to her. Mrs. Jackson was the daughter of a rich man. Col- 
onel Donelson, and was perhaps the best educated young 
woman in the early days of Nashville, though she would not 
now be called an accomplished woman. Some of her letters 
have been preserved, and they show that great injustice has 



ANDREW JACKSON. 103 

been done her by both tongue and pen gossipers. She was 
the most beloved of women, and no great man loaded down 
with life's mighty responsibilities ever had in a wife a more 
enduring solace than did General Jackson — a wife to curb 
and comfort, a wife who ever reminded him that he was 
only mortal, and that he had a Heavenly Father to care 
for him. I give one of her letters written from Washing- 
ton, when he was there as Senator and candidate for Presi- 
dent in 1823, written under circumstances that, with most 
women, intensify life's pleasures at the cost of Christian 

virtues : 

"Washington, D. C, 

"Mrs. Jackson to Mrs. Eliza Kingsley: 

"The present moment is the first I can call my own since 
my arrival in this great city. Our journey indeed was 
fatio-uing. We were twenty-seven days on the road, but 
no accident happened to us. My dear husband is in better 
health than when he came. We are boarding in the same 
house with the nation's guest, Lafayette. I am delighted 
with him. All the attention — all the parties he goes to — 
never appear to have any effect on him. In fact, he is an 
extraordinary man; he has the happy talent of knowing 
those he has once seen. For instance, when he first came to 
visit this house, the General said he would go and pay the 
Marquis the first visit. Both having the same desire, and 
at the same time, they met on the entry of the stairs. It 
was truly interesting. The emotion of revolutionary feel- 
ings was aroused in them both. At Charleston, General 
Jackson saw him on the field of battle— the one a boy of 
twelve, the Marquis twenty-three. He wears a wig, and 
is a little inclined to corpulency. He is very healthy, eats 
hearty, goes to every party, and that is every night. 

"To tell you of this city, I could not do justice to the 
subject. The extravagance is in dressing and running to 
parties ; but I must say they regard the Sabbath in attending 
preaching, for there are churches of every denomination, 
and able ministers of the gospel. We have been here two 
Sabbaths. The General and myself were both days at 
church. Mr. Baker is the pastor of the church we go to. 



104 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

He is a fine man — a plain, good preacher. We were waited 
on by two of Mr. Balches' elders, inviting us to take a pew 
in his church at Georgetown, but previous to that I had an 
invitation to the other. General Cole, Mary Emily, and 
Andrew went to the Episcopal Church. 

"Oh, my dear friend, how shall I get through this bustle? 
There are not less than fifty to one hundred persons calling 
a day. My dear husband was unwell nearly the whole of 
the journey, but, thanks to our Heavenly Father, his health 
is improving. Still his appetite is delicate, and company 
and business are oppressive ; but I look unto the Lord, from 
whence comes all my comforts. I have the precious 
promise, and I know that my Redeemer liveth. 

"Don't be afraid of my giving away to those vain things. 
The Apostle says : 'I can do all things in Christ, who 
strengtheneth me.' The play-actors sent me a letter, re- 
questing my countenance to them. No. A ticket to balls 
and parties. No, not one; two dinings; several times to 
drink tea. Indeed, Mr. Jackson encourages me in my 
course. I am going today to hear Mr. Summerfield. He 
preaches in the Methodist Church — a very highly spoken of 
minister. Glory to God for the privilege. Not a day or 
night but there is church open for prayer." 

A celebrated divine of New York, Dr. VanPelt, gives an 
interesting interview he had with General Jackson during 
his last term in the presidential chair, in which he says 
General Jackson remarked : 

"We have the best country and the best institutions in 
the world. No people have so much to be grateful for as 
we; but, ah, my reverend friend, there is one thing I fear 
will yet sap the foundations of our liberty — that monster 
institution, the Bank of the United States." 

Continuing, the Doctor said : 'T hear. General, that you 
were blessed with a Christian companion." (Companion 
is clerical for wife.) "Yes," said the President, "my wife 
was a pious Christian woman. She gave me the best ad- 
vice, and I have not been unmindful of it. When the 



ANDREW JACKSON. 105 

people in their sovereign pleasure elected me President of 
the United States, she said to me : 'Don't let your oppor- 
tunity turn your mind away from the duty you owe to God. 
Before him we are all alike sinners, and to him we must all 
alike give account. All these things will pass away, and 
you and I, and all of us must stand before God.' I have 
never forgotten it. Doctor, and I never shall." Tears were 
in his eyes, adds Dr. VanPelt, as he said these words. 



106 LIFE AND TIMES OF 



CHAPTKR VIII. 

JACKSON ORDERED TO RAISE AN ARMY AND PROTECT THE 

FRONTIER BRITISH THEN CLAIMING EVERYTHING; 

VICTORIES HAD MADE THEM HAUGHTY LONDON 

PAPERS ON WAR MINISTERS AT GHENT ALARMED 

NAPOLEON^S CAPITULATION SENT WELLINGTON'S 

FORCES TO UNITED STATES HENCE JACKSON CON- 
QUERED THE world's CONQUERORS. 

THE Creek Campaign, as it is usually called, is a 
chapter in the history of the country full of marked 
features, incidents of moral and physical courage, 
all crowned with success and far-reaching results. 

When General Jackson was summoned, and taken out of 
the hands of his surgeons, to raise an army and protect the 
frontiers of Tennessee and Georgia from what threatened 
to be the most dreadful and diabolical war that the savages 
had ever waged against the white people on the continent, 
the British armies in the Northern States on the Canada 
line were having a succession of victories over our armies, 
which indicated a decline in American pluck, and which 
had produced such a profound impression in Great Britain 
that her commissioners, then at Ghent, with our commis- 
sioners, were making most extraordinary demands, claiming 
concessions which, if agreed to, would have brought upon 
us the deepest humiliation. 

So sure was the Government that the next great blow 
would be at the South, by landing an army at Mobile or 
New Orleans, with a view of overrunning the South, that 
General Jackson had in the fall of 1812 been ordered to 
raise an army and go down the Mississippi River and await 
orders. But as shown in a former chapter, when he 



ANDREW JACKSON. 107 

reached Natchez he was ordered to disband his army, which 
he promptly proceeded not to do, and marched it back to 
Nashville, where he disbanded it in the spring of 1813. 

The success of the British army in capturing Washing- 
ton, and in all the battles on the Canadian line, and the 
threatened uprising of the Indians in the Northwest and 
the South, was rapidly making in other parts of the country 
besides New England a very powerful peace party, the re- 
sult of all which was to send Mr. Clay, Mr. Adams, Mr. 
Gallatin, Mr. Russell, and Mr. Bayard to Europe to nego- 
tiate a treaty of peace, if possible. The condition in this 
country and the outlook were fully exemplified by the de- 
mands of the British when they met our commissioners at 
Ghent. Putting their demands upon their victories, and 
what seemed to be the certain triumphant success of their 
arms, they demanded that we should yield the right of 
search — what we were fighting about ; that we should give 
them equal rights with us in the navigation of the Missis- 
sippi River; that we should not keep ships of war on the 
lakes, and that we should surrender a large part of our 
territory — all of what is now Michigan, Wisconsin, and 
a large part of what is now Ohio, Illinois, and Indiana. 

To their demand, Mr. Clay, who had brought on the war 
by a single speech in Congress, made reply that "here we 
stop," and there was no further discussion of terms until 
Jackson gained his great victories over the Creek Indians 
in the winter of 181 3-14, and the news reached Ghent. 

The British were making preparations for bringing an 
immense army to the South — an army made up, as was 
threatened, of trained British soldiers, Indians from the 
Northwest and negroes from St. Domingo, while New Eng- 
land, after a great struggle between the profits of commerce 
and the consequences of war, decided in favor of the latter 
and brought on the Revolution; yet they were utterly op- 
posed to the war of 1812. Not only the Hartford Con- 



108 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

vention, but the press and the people were outspoken against 
it; and after the capture of the cities and the defeat of our 
armies on the lakes and along the Canadian line, they were 
clamorous for peace on any terms. The administration, 
while it was doing its whole duty, and the President, Mr. 
Madison, was standing courageously by the army, it 
realized fully our lack of preparation, and the odds against 
us in fighting trained soldiers with raw militia. 

England had never been content under the surrender of 
Lord Cornwallis, and the war of 1812 was popular in 
England. England had bullied the United States for years 
to bring on the war by searching our ships and taking our 
seamen, and putting them in the army or in jail. At the 
time Jackson was fighting and destroying the British allies, 
in Hyde Park they were having sham battles to amuse 
the public by a display of British valor over American 
cowardice. 

Here is a specimen of press comments on the war from 
the London Sun, of September 3, 1814: 

"The American armies of copper captains and Falstaff 
recruits defy the pen of satire to paint them worse than 
they are — worthless, lying, treacherous, false, slanderous, 
cowardly and vaporing heroes, with boasting on their lying 
tongues and terror in their quaking hearts. Were it not that 
the course of punishment is necessary to the ends of moral 
and political justice, we declare before our country that 
we should feel ashamed of victory over such ignoble foesJ 
The quarrel resembles one between a gentleman and a 
chimney-sweeper; the former may beat the latter to his 
heart's content, but there is no honor in the exploit, and he 
is sure to be wounded with the soil and dirt of his ignomin- 
ious antagonist. But necessity will sometimes compel us 
to descend from our station to chastise a vagabond and en- 
dure the disgrace of a contact, in order to suppress by 
wholesome correction the presumptions insolence and mis- 
chievous design of the basest assailant." 



ANDREW JACKSON. 109 

The London Times said, in speaking of President 
Madison : 

_ "This fellow, notorious for lying, for insolence of all 
kinds, for his barbarous warfare, both in Canada and 
against the Creek Indians." 

The English people were not only elated and boastful 
over their victories, but the long war with France had just 
ended, and the allied powers had compelled the capitulation 
of Napoleon, and England was in position to concentrate all 
her forces on the United States. Such had been our dis- 
asters in the North that the Administration was more than 
anxious for peace. While General Jackson was prosecut- 
ing this campaign against the Indians, great events were 
taking place in Europe, which with the Administration and 
public men generally caused the greatest anxiety. The 
allied powers were so pressing Napoleon that France gave 
signs of yielding, which was a great relief to England, then 
carrying on two wars— one with France and the other with 
the United States ; there was a strong hope expressed that 
the military power of England could be turned against the 
United States. 

Bouerrenne, in his "Memoirs of Napoleon," shows that 
finally, and' on the 7th of April, 181 4, Napoleon consented 
to the evacuation of Italy, and on the 13th of the same 
month signed the stipulation for banishment to Elba. This 
freed the great armies of England, and she at once com- 
menced the preparation of increasing the army and navy 
against the United States, and especially of turning from 
the North to the South, which was to be overrun. General 
Packinham, the brother-in-law of Wellington, who had 
served under him in the Italian and French campaigns, was 
to be put in command. The Administration was grievously 
perplexed to carry on the war, and in different capacities it 
had sent to Europe our greatest statesmen. When the 



110 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

downfall was made known to these gentlemen — Clay at 
Gottenburg, Crawford at Paris, Bayard at Ceylon, Gallatin 
at London, and Russell at Stockholm, it was agreed by them 
that the chances of peace were greatly lessened. 

Mr. Gallatin, on the 22d of April, 1814, wrote the fol- 
lowing letter to Mr. Clay : 

"You are sufficiently aware of the total change in our 
affairs produced by the late revolution and by the restora- 
tion of universal peace in the European world, from which 
we are alone excluded. A well-organized and large army 
is at once liberated from European employment, and ready, 
together with a superabundant naval force, to act imme- 
diately against us. How ill-prepared we are in a proper 
manner to meet such a force ho one knows better than your- 
self; but above all, our own divisions and the hostile atti- 
tude of the Eastern States give room to apprehend that a 
continuance of the war might prove vitally fatal to the 
United States. I understand that the ministers, with whom 
we have not had any direct intercourse, still profess to be 
disposed to make an equitable peace. But they hope not 
of ultimate conquest, but of a dissolution of the Union ; the 
convenient pretense which the American War will afford 
to preserve a large military establishment; and above all 
the force of popular feeling may all unite in inducing the 
Cabinet in throwing impediment in the way of peace. They 
will not certainly be disposed to make concessions; not 
probably be displeased at a failure of negotiations. That 
the war is popular and that national pride, inflated by the 
last unprecedented success, cannot be satisfied without 
what they call the 'chastisement of America,' cannot be 
doubted. The mass of people here know nothing of 
American politics but through the medium of Federal 
speeches and newspapers, faithfully transcribed in their own 
journals. They do not even suspect that we have any 
just cause of complaint, and consider us altogether the ag- 
gressors and as allies of Bonaparte." 

The British Ministry acted promptly, and Mr. Gallatin 
wrote from London a letter to the President, which came on 
the same ship that brought the news of the downfall of 



ANDREW JACKSON. Ill 

Napoleon, giving him evidence of what had been resolved 
upon. He said "great fleets were being prepared and every 
city on the sea was alive. He knew not where the first 
blow would fall ; he did know, he said, of the intended con- 
quest of the Southwest." 

When Clay, Gallatin, Adams, Bayard, and Russell met 
the British Ministers at Ghent, demands were made in view 
of the great victories in the North and England's freedom 
from a war at home, which astonished our commissioners 
in their boldness and far-reaching purpose — nothing short 
of the free navigation of the Mississippi River, and the 
cession of a large part of our territory to be given up. 

But the noble courage of Mr. Clay, at Ghent, in all proba- 
bility prevented some concession, which would have been 
deeply humiliating. 

To fully appreciate the character and conduct of General 
Jackson in the Creek War, and how in his appreciation of it 
he towered above all other men, it is necessary that I give 
a sketch of that powerful tribe of Indians, how the war 
was brought on, and what character of war it was. 

The Creeks had from the first settlement by Europeans 
in the South always been regarded as the most powerful 
of all the Indian tribes, and greater efforts had been made to 
make friends of them than any other tribe. They inhabited 
a vast country, now Alabama and Mississippi, and parts of 
Georgia, and at the time of the Creek War, Alabama and 
Mississippi were known as the Mississippi Territory. The 
Government had, with a view of friendship, kept a Mr. 
Hawkins with them for many years (appointed by Wash- 
ington), cultivating friendly relations by association and 
making presents. He was a wise man and exercised good 
influence, and for a long time previous to the War of 1812 
they had been on good terms with the whites and had gen- 
erally respected their treaties. They had fully 10,000 war- 
riors — braves. 



112 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

The uprising of the Creek Indians and the dread spectacle 
of an Indian war on the frontiers, under the black flag, was 
the work of Tecumseh. He was not a Creek; he was of 
the same tribe as Logan, a great orator and a much greater 
man. They were Shawanoes, a tribe that once lived in the 
South and were neighbors to the Creeks, but they settled 
in the valley of the Miamis, where Tecumseh was born. 
All who knew him and wrote about him represented him as 
a man of great intellect, a powerful man physically, and 
a man of wonderful force of character. 

Drake, in his "Life of Tecumseh," says: 

"Investigation establishes that Tecumseh, though not the 
faultless ideal of a patriot prince that romantic story repre- 
sents him, was all of a patriot, a hero, a man that an Indian 
can be. If to conceive a grand, difficult, and unselfish 
project; to labor for many years with enthusiasm and pru- 
dence in executing it, or attempting its execution ; to enlist 
in it by the magnetism of personal influence great multitudes 
of various tribes; to contend for it with unfaltering valor 
longer than there was hope of success ; and to die fighting 
for it to the last, falling forward toward the enemy covered 
with wounds, is to give proof of an heroic cast of character, 
then, is the Shawanoe chief, Tecumseh, in whose veins 
flowed no blood that was not Indian, entitled to rank among 
heroes." 

For an Indian he was humane, and compelled his people 
to abandon the practice of torturing prisoners. 

General Harrison, who finally conquered him, says of him : 

"He was one of those uncommon geniuses which spring 
up occasionally to produce revolutions and overturn the 
order of things. If it were not for the vicinity of the United 
States, he would, perhaps, be the founder of an empire that 
would rival in glory Mexico or Peru. No difficulties deter 
him. For four years he has been in constant motion. You 
see him today on the Wabash, and in a short time hear of 
him on the shores of Lake Erie or Michigan, or on the banks 



ANDREW JACKSON. 113 

of the Mississippi ; and wherever he goes he makes an 
impression favorable to his purpose." 

Mr. Pickett, in his "History of Alabama," gives an inter- 
esting account of his inauguration of the Creek War as 
follows : 

"The ancient capital of the Creeks never looked so gay 
and populous. An autumnal sun glittered upon the yellow 
faces of 5,000 natives, besides whites and negroes, who 
mingled with them. At the conclusion of the agent's first 
day's addresss, Tecumseh, at the head of the Ohio party, 
marched into the square. They were entirely naked, except 
their flaps and ornaments. Their faces were painted black, 
and their heads adorned with eagle plumes, while buffalo 
tails dragged from behind, suspended from bands which 
went around their waists. Buffalo tails were also attached 
to their arms, and made to stand out by means of beads. 
Their appearance was hideous, and their bearing pompous 
and ceremonious. They marched round and round in the 
square; then approaching the chiefs, they cordially shook 
them with the whole length of the arm and exchanged 
tobacco, a common ceremony with the Indians denoting 
friendship. Captain Isaacs, Chief of Coosawda, was the 
only one who refused to exchange tobacco. His head, 
adorned with its usual costume, a pair of buffalo horns, 
was shaken in contempt of Tecumseh, who, he said, was a 
bad man, and no greater than he was. 

"Every day Tecumseh appeared in the square to deliver 
his 'talk,' and all everywhere anxious to hear it ; but late in 
the evening he would rise and say : 'The sun had gone too 
far today; I will make my talk tomorrow.' At length 
Hawkins terminated his business and departed for the 
agency upon the Flint. That night a grand council was 
held in the great round-house. Tecumseh, presenting his 
graceful and majestic form above the heads of hundreds, 
made known his mission in a long speech, full of fire and 
vengeance. He exhorted them to return to their primitive 
customs, to throw aside the plow and loom, and to abandon 
an agricultural life, which was unbecoming Indian warriors. 
He told them that after the whites had possessed the greater 



114 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

part of their country, turned its beautiful forests into large 
fields, and stained their rivers with the washings of the soil, 
they would then subject them to African servitude. He 
exhorted them to assimilate in no way with the grasping, 
unprincipled race, to use none of their arms, and wear none 
of their clothes, but dress in the skins of beasts which the 
Great Spirit had given his red children for food and raiment, 
and to use the war club, the scalping knife and the bow. 
He concluded by announcing that the British, their former 
friends, had sent him from the Big Lakes to procure their 
services in expelling the Americans from all Indian soil; 
that the King of England was ready handsomely to reward 
all who would fight for his cause." 

That this campaign of muscles was inspired by England's 
orders to an ally is admitted by Colonel Nichol, who after- 
wards led the Indians against Mobile. 

"A prophet, who was one of the party of Tecumseh, next 
spoke. He said that he frequently communed with the 
Great Spirit, who had sent Tecumseh to their country upon 
this mission, the character of which that great chief 
had described. He declared that those who would join 
the war party should be shielded from all harm, and none 
would be killed in battle ; that the Great Spirit would sur- 
round them with quagmires, which would swallow up the 
Americans as they approached; that they would finally 
expel every Georgian from the soil as far as Savannah ; that 
they would see the arms of Tecumseh stretched out in the 
heavens at a certain time, and that they would then know 
when to begin war. 

"A short time before daylight the council adjourned, and 
more than half the audience had already resolved to go to 
war against the Americans. 

"To his public addresses from town to town, Tecumseh 
added private persuasion. He established prophets in 
various places to do the requisite howling and dancing, and 
to perform miracles. His utmost exertions were employed 
in gaining over the great chiefs. 

"Among his first disciples, and quite his greatest, was 
Weatherford, a half-breed, a man of kindred spirit to him- 



ANDREW JACKSON. II5 

self, possessing much of his own grandeur of idea; hand- 
some, sagacious, eloquent, and brave." 

This was a peace council, being held at the ancient capital 
of the Creek Nation, on the Alabama River, held by and 
between the Government agent, Hawkins, and the chiefs of 
the Creek Nation ; and it was while this council was being 
held, as shown, that the war was decided upon. 

Tecumseh was not simply the ally. of the British; his war 
was older than the War of 1812. He had gone from tribe 
to tribe in the Northwest, and with his brother, the prophet, 
had incited all of them to war, and it was in these wars that 
General Harrison made the reputation that elected him 
President in 1840. 

Though in one sense he was a humane Indian, yet his fight 
was to get back the country the white people had taken from 
them ; and by his commanding presence and great power of 
oratory, he educated all the tribes he came in contact with up 
to the point of recovering their lost country, and that this 
could only be done by killing all the white people as they 
came to them. 

When the war was commenced by the massacre of 400, 
mostly women and children, at Fort Mimms, it was the 
beginning of what ought to be called the British-Creek-Black 
Flag war. It meant attack on the frontiers of Tennessee 
and Georgia, and the death of all, old and young, male and 
female, as they came to them. 

While Tecumseh had instigated this war of many tribes 
before the War of 18 12, which was declared in June, yet 
before he came South, in 1813, fie had fully identified him- 
self with the King's cause, and had the pledge of the British 
Government that the Indians should be restored to all their 
aboriginal rights. 

By the threatening outlook and uprising of the Indians 
in the summer of 1813 -- and there was much evidence that 



116 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

they were not only aroused and set on by the British, but 
that in some way they were encouraged in their helHsh mode 
of carrying on the war — so great was the alarm that the 
people, the women and children especially, from an extensive 
and thinly-settled community had flocked to the place known 
as Fort Mimms, on the Alabama River, where some houses 
and barracks had been built by a wealthy settler named 
Mimms. 

The massacre was one of the most shocking, brutal, and 
barbarous known in history. The whole country was in 
dread fear, and the few people left in the territory were 
fleeing for their lives. Days after the horrible deed, 400 
mangled and decaying bodies were being devoured by dogs 
and swarms of vulture that had collected from far and near. 

It is said that when the news of this butchery, which was 
at the end of thirty-one days, reached New York, it made 
among the people but little impression, so absorbed were 
they in the war that was coming home to them with all the 
dread foreboding of defeat. 

In all the history of glorious Tennessee — at New Orleans, 
at King's Mountain, and on many fields, always the first to 
hear the cry for help and to rally under the flag — there is 
no leaf in her history that I would be slower to tear out than 
the one recounting the manhood of the Tennesseans at this 
dreadful crisis. 

At the end of nineteen days after the horrible massacre, 
the news was brought to the city of Nashville, then a small 
place. The news reached Nashville on Saturday. On the 
same day a public meeting was held, over which the Rev. 
Mr. Craighead, a Presbyterian minister, presided. There 
was but one sentiment — Tennesseans are soldiers. All 
thoughts were at once turned to a bed of suffering only a 
short distance away. These thoughts were laden with 
expressions of regret that the great soldier, from recent gun- 
shot wounds, could not lead the brave Tennesseans to the 



ANDREW JACKSON. 117 

defense of the helpless people in the territory, and our own 
equally helpless people on the frontiers. But a committee 
was appointed, one member of which was John Coffee — 
whom Jackson loved and had a right to love above all other 
men — to wait on and confer with Governor Blount ; and 
the committee was instructed to call and confer with General 
Jackson. The meeting adjourned to meet the next day, 
Sunday. 

The committee saw the Governor and General Jackson, 
and reported that the Governor was taking steps to have the 
subject brought before the Legislature; and that Jackson 
said he would take command of the army, and had issued 
the address, a copy of which was reported, and which is as 
follows : 

"The horrid butcheries perpetrated on our defenseless 
fellow citizens near Fort Stoddart cannot fail to excite in 
every bosom a spirit of revenge. The subjoined letter of 
our worthy Governor shows that the Federal Government 
has deposited no authority in this quarter to afford aid to 
the unhappy sufferers. It is wished that volunteers should 
go forward, relying on the justice of the general Govern- 
ment for ultimate remuneration. It surely never would be 
said that the brave Tennesseans wanted other inducements 
than patriotism and humanity to rush to the aid of their 
bleeding neighbors, their friends and relations. I feel con- 
fident that dull calculations of sneaking prudence will not 
prevent you from immediately stepping forth on this occa- 
sion, so worthy the arm of every brave soldier and good 
citizen. I regret that indisposition, which, from present 
appearances, is not likely to continue, may prevent me from 
leading the van; but indulge the grateful hope of sharing 
with you the dangers and glory of prostrating those hell- 
hounds, who are capable of such barbarities. In the mean- 
time, let all who can arm themselves, do so, and hasten to 
Fort Stephens." 

Among the thousand daring incidents in the life of Gen- 
eral Jackson, nothing excels in desperate courage this act of 



118 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

mandatory force over himself. The day fixed for assem- 
bhng the army at Fayetteville was the 4th of October, just 
thirty days from the time Jackson was shot by the Bentons. 

When the committee went to see him, his surgeons were 
there, and forbade any discussion of the matter. But "Old 
Hickory" had a way of rising above doctors when his coun- 
try needed him. Sixteen days before the committee saw 
him he had been so badly wounded in a fight with Thomas 
and Jesse Benton that a majority of his physicians decided 
to take off his arm. His condition was really critical, and 
gave him extreme pain. There, perhaps, never lived a man, 
a capable officer, who would have undertaken to lead an 
army under the same conditions. Without the loss of a day, 
he managed, through the Governor and General Cocke, who 
was in the city, to have an order for supplies to be sent from 
East Tennessee down the river to meet him at Ditto's 
Landing. 

On the 25th of September the Legislature passed a bill 
appropriating $300,000 to pay and feed the soldiers, taking 
the chance of being reimbursed by the general Government ; 
and in a few days General Jackson was lifted on his horse, 
with his arm in a sling and his shoulder bandaged, and on 
the 7th of October he reached Fayetteville, a distance of 
nearly one hundred miles, and took command of his army. 

Under the order of the Governor, 3,500 men were called 
out for immediate service — 2,500 from West Tennessee 
(what is now Middle and West Tennessee) under General 
Jackson; the others from East Tennessee under General 
Cocke. 

The reader will see — get a good look at this remarkable 
man — his alertness, his force of character, when I recount 
that he was shot on the 4th of September ; it was on the 19th 
of September the committee took him out of the hands of his 
surgeons, and when the Governor ordered him to^ take com- 
mand of the army. It was the 25th of September when the 



ANDREW JACKSON. j^g 

Legislature authorized 3,500 men to be called out and 
appropriated $300,000 to back up the call ; it was the 4th 
of October the army was ordered to be at Fayetteville 
Tennessee; it was the 7th of October when the General took 
command, and this was thirty-three days after his desperate 
hght with the Bentons, in which a slug from the pistol of 
Jesse Benton had crushed through one shoulder, and with 
a bullet still in the other arm. 

This was not all; but at the time the committee rescued 
hini from his surgeons he called up John Coffee, who proved 
to be the man that Providence had assigned to him to do a 
great work, as this and the subsequent campaigns showed — 
the man who had commanded his cavalry in the Natchez 
campaign, and who had been at his side in the desperate fi-ht 
with the Bentons, and ordered him to have 700 cavaky 
ready for the service at the eariiest possible moment. These 
men were on their horses and ready when the bill passed the 
Legislature, the 25th of September. General Jackson 
ordered Coffee to move rapidly into the Mississippi Terri- 
tory, crossing the Tennessee River, and as quick as possible 
report the movement of the Indians. When General Jackson 
reached Fayetteville, on the 7th of October, Coffee, with his 
cavalry, was between the Tennessee and Coosa Rivers, had 
his pickets out, and on the nth of October an express from 
Coffee dashed into Fayetteville and announced that the 
Indians m two large bodies were moving in the direction of 
the Tennessee and Georgia frontiers. 

At this General Jackson was pleased, for his expeditious 
movements had been made with the view of a forced march 
to Mobile, to save the helpless people there from the fate 
which had come to the women and children at Fort Mimms 
Jackson immediately issued an order to march that same 
day, and the messenger was hurrying back to Coffee with a 
letter, saymg that he would move immediately: "That it is ' 
highly satisfactory that the Creeks are so attentive to my 



120 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

situation as to save me the pain of traveling ; I must not be 
outdone in politeness, and will, therefore, endeavor to meet 
them on the middle ground." 

This express messenger reached General Jackson on the 
nth of October, at 12 o'clock, and at 3 o'clock the whole 
army was moving, and at 8 o'clock that night it reached 
Huntsville, a distance of thirty-two miles. This seems 
incredible, but it is authenticated. Perhaps none but an 
army of frontiersmen could have done it. 

This wonderful accomplishment was the work of a mind 
and heart deeply touched by the awful butcheries at Fort 
Mimms. It proves what alert sagacity can do in a great 
emergency. A father with a pardon for a son condemned 
to die, but saved if 100 miles could be ridden in one day, 
could have been no more determined to accomplish it or die, 
than was Jackson to protect the frontiers and save the 
unarmed and helpless people in the territory from the awful 
fate that awaited them. 

Jackson had kept up with Tecumseh's war in the West, 
and from the day he got out of bed and left his surgeons, 
express messengers and flying people were reaching him 
and praying for relief. 

This chapter is the opening — the unfolding — of a period 
in American history that is laden with thrilling incidents and 
known as the "J^cksonian Period," generally by writers sup- 
posed to include Jackson's presidential terms from 1829 to 
1837. But the Jacksonian period begins with Jackson 
getting out of bed on the 19th of September, 181 3, and not 
ending when he left the White House on the 4th of March, 
1837, but ending when he died, 1845; ^o^ when he went 
out of office he left Mr. VanBuren in the presidential chair, 
whom he had undoubtedly put there; and when he died in 
1845, Mr. Polk was President, who had undoubtedly been 
elected by the influence and name of General Jackson. 

Prejudice and passion have prescribed bounds, and put 



ANDREW JACKSON. 121 

limitations on the capacity and public service of this won- 
derful man; but he came like a great meteor from another 
planet, and when he struck the earth he made his own marks, 
that will not be effaced until civilization turns back to wipe 
out landmarks. 

Whoever gets the facts of this chapter in his head, and 
then carefully reads the entire history of the Creek cam- 
paign, will be prepared to appreciate what Lord Wellington 
said to Major Donalson at a dinner table in London, when 
the latter was on his way as Minister to Berlin, to wit: 
"That he had carefully read the history of General Jackson's 
Creek Campaign ; and if he had never done anything else, 
this would have made Jackson one of the great generals of 
the world." 



122 LIFE AND TIMES OF 



chapti:r IX. 

Jackson's close touch with his men — issues most 
extraordinary orders to army correspondence 

WITH OFFICERS JACKSON's DISPATCH CONCERNING 

SITUATION IN INDIAN STRONGHOLD KINDNESS TO 

THE POOR FAMISHED INDIANS. 

PERHAPS no general, not even Napoleon, ever kept 
himself in touch with his army as Jackson did. 
Like Julius Caesar, he kept no secrets; at short 
intervals he issued spirited addresses, and had them read to 
the army. Before leaving Fayetteville he issued and had 
read the following address : 

"We are about to furnish these savages a lesson of admo- 
nition ; we are about to teach them that our long forbearance 
has not proceeded from an insensibility to wrongs, or an 
inability to redress them. They stand in need of such 
warning. In proportion as we have borne with their insults 
and submitted to their outrages, they have multiplied in 
number and increased in atrocity. But the measure of their 
offenses is at length filled. The blood of our women and 
children recently spilled at Fort Mimms calls for our ven- 
geance ; it must not call in vain. Our borders must be no 
longer disturbed by the warwhoop of these savages and the 
cries of their suffering victims. The torch that has been 
lighted up must be made to blaze in the heart of their own 
country. It is time they should be made to feel the weight 
of a power which, because it was merciful, they believed to 
be impotent. But how shall a war so long forborne and so 
loudly called for by retributive justice be waged? Shall 
we imitate the examples of our enemies in the disorder of 
our movement and the savageness of their disposition? Is 
it worthy the character of American soldiers, who take up 
arms to redress the wrongs of an injured country, to assume 



ANDREW JACKSON. 123 

no better models than those furnished them by barbarians? 
No, fellow soldiers ; great as are the grievances that have 
called us from our home, we must not permit disorderly 
passions to tarnish the reputations we shall carry along with 
us. We must and will be victorious ; but we must conquer 
as men who owe nothing to chance, and who, in the midst of 
victory, can still be mindful of what is due to humanity. 

"We will commence the campaign by an inviolable atten- 
tion to discipline and subordination. Without a strict 
observance of these, victory must ever be uncertain, and 
ought hardly be exulted in, even when gained. To what 
but the entire disregard of order and subordination are we 
to ascribe the disasters which have attended our arms in the 
North during the present war? How glorious will it be to 
remove the blots which have tarnished the fair character 
bequeathed us by the fathers of our revolution ? The bosom 
of your General is full of hope. He knows the ardor which 
animated you, and already exults in the triumph which your 
strict observance of discipline and good order will render 
certain." 

Was any order ever issued by the commander of an army 
to his soldiers that excels this ? But to this day this great 
American soldier is only an "ignorant backwoodsman." 

Reaching Huntsville, Jackson found the news of the near 
approach of the Indians had been exaggerated, and the next 
day he marched leisurely to the Tennessee River and crossed, 
coming up with Colonel Coffee. 

Under orders from the Governor, and by an agreement 
with General Cocke, the supplies to feed the army were to 
be sent down the river to meet the moving army at Ditto's 
Landing, ten miles south of Huntsville. But putting the 
failure on low water, General Cocke and his contractors had 
failed to have the supplies, and General Jackson found him- 
self in the Indian's country, on the bank of the river, and 
entirely beyond the settlements, hemmed in by rough moun- 
tains, no roads, with 2,500 men and 1,300 horses to be fed, 
with less than five days' rations. While the river at this 



124 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

point was a beautiful and large stream, and apparently 
showed sufficient water for boats, yet it was soon found 
that the supplies from East Tennessee, expected, could not 
be depended upon. The question at once arose of moving 
the army back where it could be fed. To this General Jack- 
son refused to listen. Cutting a road through the mountains 
up the river, he moved up to Thompson's Creek, twenty-two 
miles, to the place which is now known as Fort Deposit, 
hoping to there meet his supplies coming down the river, or 
hear something of them. 

On reaching the mouth of Thompson's Creek, cutting his 
road and climbing mountains, which his private secretary, 
John Reed, in a letter to the quartermaster, William B. 
Lewis, whom the General had sent back to Nashville to see 
what could be done there, well describes the situation. It 
was written after all hopes of getting supplies were gone, 
and when the army, without anything to subsist on, was 
about moving. The letter was as follows : 

"Camp Deposit^ on Thompson's Creek, 

"October 24, 181 3. 
"Major Lewis: 

"Dear Sir : — We have cut our way over mountains 
more tremendous than the Alps, and today we ascend others. 
At this place we have remained a day for the purpose of 
establishing a depot for provisions ; but where those provis- 
ions are to come from, or when they are to arrive, God 
Almighty only knows. We had expected supplies from 
East Tennessee, but they have not arrived, and I am fearful 
they never will. I speak seriously when I declare I expect 
we shall soon have to eat our horses, and perhaps this is the 
best use we can put a great many of them to. 

"The hostile Creeks, as we learned yesterday, from the 

Pathkiller, are assembling in great numbers within fifteen 

miles from Turkey Town. Chenully, who is posted with 

the friendly Creeks in the neighborhood of that place, it is 

' feared will be destroyed before we can arrive to their relief. 



ANDREW JACKSON. 125 

In three days we shall probably have a fight. The General 
swears he will neither sound a retreat nor survive a defeat. 

"General White, of the East Tennessee Militia, has not 
yet joined us, nor has Colonel Coffee returned, who was 
despatched before you left us ; but we understand that Coffee 
lay within ten miles of us last night, and will be up by I2 
o'clock. He saw no Indians, but burned some towns. 

"General White, with the advance division, consisting 
perhaps of a thousand, arrived near a week ago at the foot 
of Lookout Mountain, and will probably form a junction 
with us in a few days, if our movements should not be too 
speedy for him. We, however, have been greatly delayed 
by the irregularity and scarcity of our supplies, and the 
ruggedness of the mountains over which we have had to 
pass. And the same causes will, no doubt, continue to 
impede our progress. 

"We are distant from the Ten Islands about fifty miles 
by the nearest route, for which place we shall recommence 
our march in the evening, leaving Turkey Town and Che- 
nully Fort to the left, unless we should find it necessary to 
go to them for their relief. 

"We shall leave this place with less than two days' supply 
of provisions. Adieu. Write me if you have an opportu- 
nity. I am in a great hurry. Farewell again. 

"John Reid." 

Before leaving Ditto's Landing, Jackson had not only sent 
Major Lewis back to Nashville to forward supplies in 
wagons, but he had sent General Coffee with his cavalry out 
in the Indian country to destroy their towns and gather any 
supplies he could. He wrote letters to General Cocke and 
to Judge Hugh L. White, and to the Governor of Tennessee, 
making most earnest appeals for supplies. Most men would 
have turned back and gone where he could feed his army, 
but Jackson not for a moment listened to such a suggestion. 
All his letters were in substance : 

"Give me provisions and I will end this war in a month." 
"There is an enemy," he wrote, "whom I dread much more 
than I do the hostile Creeks, and whose power I am fearful 



126 LJPE AND TIMES OF 

I shall first be made to feel — I mean the meagre monster. 
Famine. I shall leave this encampment in the morning 
direct for the Ten Islands, and thence, with as little delay as 
possible, to the junction of the Coosa and Tallapoosa. And 
yet, I have not on hand two days' supply of breadstuff s." 

Before leaving Deposit, General Jackson wrote and caused 
to be read to the army an order — in truth, an address — 
complimenting the soldiers for the fortitude and sacrifice 
under which they were discharging their duties as officers. 
Among other things, he said : 

"You have, fellow soldiers, at length penetrated the 
country of your enemies. It is not to be believed that they 
will abandon the soil that embosoms the bones of their fore- 
fathers without furnishing you an opportunity of signalizing 
your valor. Wise men do not expect; brave men do not 
desire it. It was not to travel unmolested through a barren 
wilderness that you quitted your families and homes, and 
submitted to so many privations; it was to avenge the 
cruelties committed upon your defenseless frontiers by the 
inhuman Creeks, instigated by their no less inhuman allies ; 
you shall not be disappointed. If the enemy flees before us, 
we will overtake and chastise him ; we will teach him how 
dreadful, when once aroused, is the resentment of freemen." 

The reader who knows not the country will never realize 
the hardihood of Jackson's march — road-making, rather — 
from Fort Deposit to the Ten Islands, on the Coosa River ; 
it was across the Sand Mountain, one of the roughest and 
most forbidding mountains in the South; there were no 
roads and the country was entirely uninhabited. While the 
country was still new, more than fifty years ago, the writer 
of these memoirs crossed this mountain over the Jackson 
trace, and at that time to take a loaded wagon up and down 
the mountain was the dread of a journey from Tennessee 
to the South. 

Jackson left Deposit on the 25th of October, depending 



ANDREW JACKSON. 127 

on the wild woods for something to feed his army. For 
nine days the bulk of the army was cutting down trees and 
digging up stumps to make a road; the balance were out 
destroying Indian towns, getting everything they could find, 
and hunting wild game to prevent starvation. 

Coffee reported that the Indians in large numbers had 
collected at the Ten Islands, on the Coosa River, an Indian 
town called Talleesehatchie, and in nine days after leaving 
Deposit, Jackson's army was within ten miles of this body 
of Indians. He ordered Coffee, who had been made a brig- 
adier general, to take a part of his command and bring on 
the fight. 

It was on the evening of the 2d of November that this 
order was made on General Coffee, and at sunrise the next 
day Coffee was bringing on the fight. Coffee lost forty-six 
men killed and wounded. The Indians, under the teach- 
ing of Tecumseh, fought with religious fury. In the hottest 
of the fight one of their prophets climbed upon a cabin and 
stood out in full view, defying the white man's bullets, and 
showing the warriors how the Great Spirit protected him. 
Soon he tumbled off, but the warriors stood their ground 
and fought bravely until the last man was killed. Not one 
asked quarter; not one was left alive. One hundred and 
eighty-six lay dead on the battlefield. Eighty-four women 
and children were taken prisoners and brought to the Gen- 
eral's headquarters. 

Two things conspired to make this the single exception in 
American battles — every man on one side being killed. 
One was, the Indians commenced the war under the inspira- 
tion of their prophets — that they must neither ask nor give 
quarter, and the belief on the part of General Jackson and 
his entire army that nothing short of such a lesson would 
cool the frenzy of the war spirit and the hellish purpose of 
recovering their lost country by killing all the white people, 
the child at the mother's breast. 



128 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

The report of General Jackson, made to Governor Blount, 
is as follows : 

"We have retaliated for the destruction of Fort Mimms. 
On the 2d I detached General Coffee with a part of his 
brigade of cavalry and mounted riflemen to destroy Tallee- 
sehatchie, where a considerable force of the hostile Creeks 
had concentrated. The General executed this in style. 
One hundred and eighty-six of the enemy were found dead 
on the field, and about eighty prisoners taken, forty of whom 
have been brought here. In the numbers left there is a 
sufficiency, but slightly wounded, to take care of those who 
are badly. I have to regret that five of my brave soldiers 
have been killed, and about thirty wounded; some badly, 
but none, I hope, mortally. Both officers and men behaved 
with the utmost bravery and deliberation. Captains Smith, 
Bradley and Winston are wounded, all slightly. No officer 
is killed. So soon as General Coffee makes his report, I 
shall enclose it. If we had a sufficient supply of provisions, 
should, in a short time, accomplish the object of our 
expedition." 

The women and children taken and brought in were sent 
to the white settlements and cared for. General Coffee, in 
his report to General Jackson, expressed his deep regrets 
that in the Talleesehatchie battle, where the Indians fought 
from their houses, a few women had been unavoidably 
killed, and from the arms of one of the dead women a little 
child had been taken, which was brought into camp. (This 
was Lincoyer, described in a former chapter.) 

On the 7th of November, four days after the battle, Gen- 
eral Jackson was notified by an escaped friendly Indian of 
a large body of Indians at Talledega, thirty miles away; 
that there were 154 friendly Indians in a fort at that place, 
and that they were literally starving and without a drop of 
water, and would certainly all be killed b^ the infuriated 
hostiles, who were dancing around the prisoners, making 
merry over the coming slaughter. 



ANDREW JACKSON. 129 

General Jackson had spent the four days in improvising a 
fort for his sick and wounded, of which he had quite a large 
number. He was literally without supplies of any kind, and 
his men were almost frenzied with hunger. At this point, 
General White, under Major General Cocke, with a com- 
mand, reached the vicinity, having come from the Georgia 
frontiers, and sent an express to General Jackson that he 
would join him next day, and that he had some supplies. 
This greatly relieved General Jackson, and having General 
White's promise to protect his sick and wounded in the 
improvised fort, known ever since as Fort Strother, he 
moved his army at once, crossing the river at night, and the 
next day, the 8th of November, he was in the neighborhood 
of Talladega, and at daylight on the 9th attacked the Indians 
1,000 strong; and this is the way General Jackson, in his 
dispatch to the Governor, tells the story of the battle : 

"At sunrise," said the General in his dispatch, "we came 
within half a mile of them, and, having formed my men, I 
moved on in battle order. The infantry were in three lines, 
the militia on the left and the volunteers on the right. The 
cavalry formed the two extreme wings, and were ordered 
to advance in a curve, keeping their rear connected with the 
advance of their infantry lines, and enclose the enemy in a 
circle. The advanced guard, whom I sent on to bring on 
the engagement, met the attack of the enemy with great 
intrepidity; and having poured upon them four or five 
very gallant rounds, fell back, as they had been previously 
ordered, to the main army. The enemy pursued, and the 
front line was now ordered to meet them; but owing to 
some misunderstanding, a few companies of militia, who 
composed a part of it, commenced a retreat. At this 
moment a corps of cavalry, commanded by Lieutenant 
Colonel Dyer, which I had kept as a reserve, was ordered to 
dismount and fill up the vacancy occasioned by the retreat. 
This order was executed with great promptitude and effect. 
The militia, seeing this, speedily rallied ; and the fire became 
general along the front line, and on that part of the wings 



ISO LIFE AND TIMES OF 

which were contiguous. The enemy, unable to stand it, 
began to retreat, but were met at every turn and repulsed in 
every direction. The right wing chased them, with a most 
destructive fire, to the mountains, a distance of about three 
miles, and had I not been compelled by the faux pas of the 
militia in the outset of the battle to dismount my reserve, I 
believe not a man of them would have escaped. The victory, 
however, was very decisive. Two hundred and ninety of 
the enemy were left dead, and there can be no doubt but that 
many more were killed who were not found. Wherever 
they ran they left behind traces of blood, and it is believed 
very few will return to their villages in as sound condition 
as they left them. In the engagement we lost fifteen killed 
and eighty-five wounded ; two of these have since died. All 
the officers acted with utmost bravery, and so did all the 
privates, except that part of the militia who retreated at the 
commencement of the battle, and they hastened to atone for 
their error. Taking the whole together, they have realized 
the high expectations I have formed of them, and have fairly 
entitled themselves to the gratitude of their country." 

The happiness and joy of the poor friendly Indians, when 
they found that they had been saved from the horrible tor- 
tures that awaited them — having been several days without 
bread or water — was a scene, as the soldiers who witnessed 
it relate, that can never be told. 

Just before the battle was fought. General Jackson 
received a dispatch from General White to the effect that he 
could not, as he had promised, proceed to Fort Strother and 
protect the sick and wounded — that General Cocke had 
ordered him back. This created in General Jackson's mind 
intense anxiety, such was the uncertainty as to the move- 
ments of the Indians, and such their alertness when they did 
move, and it being known that a large force was out on the 
move, besides those he was dealing with, that he feared the 
worst ; but he decided to expedite his campaign as laid out, 
and return to Fort Strother with all possible dispatch. 
Having gained this signal victory and buried his dead, he 



ANDREW JACKSON. 131 

made a forced march and reached Fort Strother to find the 
enemy, which he dreaded more than the Indians — starvation. 

The return to Fort Strother was the beginning of a series 
of conflicts which, in my opinion, no other man but General 
Jackson would have triumphed over. General Jackson's 
powers were never tested, and his heroism never shone as 
in the ten weeks after the Battle of Talladega. General 
White having disappointed him and returned under orders 
of General Cocke, when he, Jackson, came back to Fort 
Strother, he found the sick and wounded and the guards he 
had left literally starving. The army that he had led to 
Talladega, fighting that sanguinary battle, burying the dead 
and making a forced march back, had been, during the entire 
campaign, without supplies, except a few bushels of corn 
which they found in the hands of the Indians at Talladega. 

Literally starving himself. General Jackson devoted him- 
self to letter writing, imploring the Governor, contractors, 
friends, to save his army from starvation. Here is a sample 
of these letters : 

"I have been compelled," he wrote to a contractor a few 
days after Talladega, "to return here for the want of sup- 
plies, when I could have completed the destruction of the 
enemy in ten days ; and on my arrival I find those I had left 
behind in the same starving condition with those who accom- 
panied me. For God's sake, send me, with all despatch, 
plentiful supplies of bread and meat. We have been starv- 
ing for several days, and it will not do to continue so much 
longer. Hire wagons and purchase supplies at any price 
rather than defeat the expedition. General White, instead 
of forming a junction with me, as he assured me he would, 
has taken the retrograde motion, after amusing himself with 
consuming provisions for three weeks in the Cherokee 
Nation, and left me to rely on my own strength." 

These letters were sent by express messengers, and occa- 
sionally, at long intervals, scant supplies would come. 



132 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

Whatever of bread and meat was obtained was given to the 
soldiers, for Jackson realized that the bravest man in the 
world could not be kept in the field if a famine lasted many 
days. 

Marshall McMahon said after one of the Italian battles : 

"Few men know how important it is in war for soldiers 
not to be kept waiting for their rations." 

And Napoleon said, on being asked what a soldier needed 
most : "A full belly and a good pair of shoes." 

Jackson's force consisted of two kinds of troops — militia 
and volunteers. In this starving condition the first signs of 
mutiny were seen with the militia. The volunteers were 
literally crying for something to eat, but their pride held 
them true to the cause after the militia in bodies were threat- 
ening to leave. The mutiny began in talks around their 
camp fires, where the soldiers discussed the policy of return- 
ing to the settlements where they could be fed, as the army 
could not move on the enemy without supplies. Finally, 
the militia, after ten days of gnawing hunger, in a body, 
resolved, without the General's consent, to go back to the 
settlements. 

Jackson heard of it the morning the movement began, and 
they found him at the head of his volunteers with orders to 
stop the militia, peacefully if they could, forcibly if they 
must. It was a trying moment; the militia wavered, then 
returned to the camp. 

Probably the starving volunteers regretted the failure of 
the militia, for night did not come until they had resolved to 
go, and actually moved off in a body, to find Jackson at the 
head of the militia, blocking their path and commanding his 
troops to march the volunteers back to camp. The scene 
was as ludicrous as it was daring, and the volunteers in 
sullen silence returned to the camp. 



ANDREW JACKSON. I33 

The cavalry under Coffee had been sent back to Huntsville 
to recruit their horses, which, if possible, were in worse 
condition than the men. Jackson now had one thousand 
men remaining with him in the wilderness, not knowing how 
they were to live. 

The Tennessee press shortly afterward was full of a 
dinner which it was said Jackson gave his officers ; coolly, 
after the officers had taken their seats, pouring out on the 
table a tin cupful of acorns, with an apology, and an assur- 
ance that he hoped to have scalybarks in a week or so. 
Day by day the condition grew worse, and General Jackson, 
m person, read to the army the following address : 

"What," he asked, "is the present situation of our camp^ 
A number of our fellow soldiers are wounded and unable to 
help themselves. Shall it be said that we are so lost to 
humanity as to leave them in this condition? Can anyone 
under these circumstances, and under these prospects con- 
sent to an abandonment of our camp ? Of all that we have 
acquired m the midst of so many difficulties, privations and 
dangers ; what it will cost us so much to regain ; of what 
we never can regain — our brave, wounded companions, 
who will be murdered by our unthinking, unfeeling inhu- 
manity? Surely there can be none such. No, we will take 
with us when we go our wounded and sick. They must not 
shall not, perish by our cold-blooded indifference. But why 
should you despond ? I do not ; and yet your wants are no 
greater than mine. To be sure we do not live sumptuously : 
but no one has died of hunger or is likely to die; and then 
how animating are our prospects. Large supplies are at 
Deposit and already are officers dispatched to hasten them 
on. VVagons are on the way. A large number of beeves 
are m the neighborhood, and detachments are out to bring 
them in. All these resources cannot fail. I have no wish 
to starve you — none to deceive you. Stay contentedly: 
and if supplies do not arrive in two days, we will all march 
back together and throw the blame of our failure where it 
should properly lie; until then we certainly have the means 
of subsisting; and if we are compelled to bear privations 



134 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

let US remember that they are borne for our country, and are 
not greater than many, perhaps most, armies have been 
compelled to endure. I have called you together to tell you 
my feelings and my wishes; this evening think on them 
seriously, and let me know yours in the morning." 

Upon consultation, the officers of the volunteer regiments 
returned to General Jackson and told him that the men could 
not be kept even for the two days ; but the militia officers 
said their men would remain and see if the supplies came. 

Thereupon General Jackson ordered one regiment of vol- 
unteers to meet the provisions, while the other regiment of 
volunteers, shamed by the course of the militia, agreed to 
stay. The starving men remained the two days — militia 
and volunteers — but the provisions not coming, Jackson 
found himself caught in his own trap, and, overburdened 
with despondency, he threw up his hands and said, "If only 
two men will stay with me, I will stay and die in the wilder- 
ness." Captain Thomas Kennedy Gordon stepped out and 
said : "General, I'll stay with you and die with you in the 
wilderness." Then Gordon turned in among the men look- 
ing for volunteers, and one hundred and nine men pledged 
themselves to the General to stay with him. Thereupon 
Jackson stipulated with the army that he would take his one 
hundred and nine men and proceed with them in the direc- 
tion of Deposit, and if the supplies were met they should all 
return and finish the campaign. 

Jackson's intense anxiety came from a knowledge of the 
fact that a very large force of the Creek warriors were 
assembling at a point further south, threatening vengeance 
to the frontier settlements, and which he felt sure had to be 
destroyed if the women and children were to be saved. So 
Jackson, upon this bargain, with his staff and one hundred 
and nine men at the head of the army — all hungry and 
haggard — moved off on the road to Deposit. In the 
course of the day the army met the supplies — one hundred 



ANDREW JACKSON. 135 

and fifty beeves and other supplies. The command was, 
"Halt, kill and eat." 

In short order many beeves were killed and cooked, and 
the soldiers' gnawing hunger was satisfied. 

Then came a scene that will never be put on paper. 
Having started home, thinking of wife and children — 
maybe they were without bread — thinking of their own 
suffering for the past weeks, and of entering upon another 
campaign in the wilderness, when they would soon again be 
beyond the reach of supplies from home, as if an evil spirit 
had come in and beguiled the whole army into disobedience 
— actual mutiny. It was the work of an hour and the 
army was in a state of mutiny; many of the officers gave 
their consent to support and aid the mutinous spirit. An 
argument that had been hinted was now openly made — that 
their term would soon expire, certainly before another cam- 
paign could be made. This was all done so quickly that the 
General knew nothing about it until one regiment had moved 
off, the others preparing to follow. 

When the General got the news his rage amounted to a 
cyclone in the wilderness — he was simply an organized 
fury. They were not only soldiers under him, but he had as 
a last resort — for the time — surrendered his authority 
and contracted with the army that, if they met the supplies 
and their hunger was appeased, they would return and 
follow him until the Creek army was destroyed and the 
frontiers protected. He had kept his part of the contract. 
If there was, with General Jackson, anything in the world 
that, in sacredness, equaled the obligation of the soldier, it 
was the fulfillment of a contract. His whole life, as a mer- 
chant, as a business man, his contracts were absolutely invio- 
lable — they were kept, no matter what it cost. But with 
his soldiers now, the mutiny when they were not hungry, 
and the breach of a contract which they had solemnly made, 
put him where he would have fought a den of wildcats. So, 



136 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

when he found that one regiment had moved off, and others 
were following, he mounted his horse and galloped down 
the road, followed by a few trusties, and making a detour 
he was soon ahead of the moving regiment. To his delight 
he met his "old reliable," General Coffee, returning. Rely- 
ing on nobody, giving no orders, he seized an old musket, 
rode back until he met the deserters — as he called them — 
and facing them with a fury that was as majestic as a rising 
storm, with one arm still in a sling, he laid his gun across 
his disabled arm and swore by the "Almighty" that he 
would shoot the first man that passed him. General Coffee 
rushed to his side; the soldiers wavered; then took up the 
line of march for Fort Strother. Sending Coffee at the 
head of the army back, he turned his face to Fort Deposit, 
and from that point in communication with Major Lewis, 
the Governor and the friends at home, he was soon in con- 
dition to feed his army and move on to the Fort Mimms 
murderers, who were assembling in large numbers at 
Emuckfau and the Horse Shoe. 

General Jackson's worth can be known, his faults con- 
doned, and the maligners of his character estimated, only 
when what he did for his country, and under what circum- 
stances, are fully realized. 

A revelation of the preparations being made by England 
as she was closing up the war with Napoleon and preparing 
to put a powerful army in the South — relying as she was 
on the Creek Indians with their scalping knives and toma- 
hawks as the advance guard — could not have inspired him 
with more daring and desperate courage than he exhibited 
in his determination to destroy the ally of the British so 
much relied on. He not only had starvation in his army, 
out in the enemy's country, to contend with; he had mutiny 
in its most aggravated form — the result of starvation — 
and with an army in whose bravery he had the utmost confi- 
dence; not only this, but as yet to be shown, he had the 



ANDREW JACKSON. I37 

Governor of the State virtually ordering him back where he 
could feed his army — but with it all, a great starving 
colossus, he stood out in the wilderness and said : "Here I 
stay and die in defense of the helpless and for the honor of 
my country, if only two men will stay with me." 

By this unexampled self-sacrifice and personal heroism 
he captured the Governor of the State, brought back his 
army, freed the frontiers from the British murdering allies, 
and finally made haughty old England respect a people whoi 
a few months before, had been a nation of cowards in the 
estimation of a braggart press. 

And this respect has now lasted eighty-five years. 



138 



LIFE AND TIMES OF 



CHAPTi)R X. 

THE CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN GOVERNOR BLOUNT AND 

GENERAL JACKSON JACKSON REFUSES TO RETURN TO 

TENNESSEE^ AND RAISES A NEW ARMY. 

IN writing the Life and Times of Andrew Jackson, 
every truthful scrap of history that can now be picked 
up about the Creek campaign, and especially that part 
of the campaign now under consideration, merits its place 
in this work, and no part of the investigation, now under- 
going the third revision, has imposed on me a more sacred 
trust, with a stronger feeling and higher appreciation of the 
sublime — transcendently sublime — character of this great 
American soldier than the Creek Campaign. Great as was 
his power in all the crises, and wonderful as were his mar- 
velous successes as soldier and statesman as well as in busi- 
ness, nothing has so impressed me as the scenes through 
which we are now passing, and in them the reckless daring 
and hardihood — no other words will do. It was a des- 
perate courage and confidence in a great crisis, in whose 
surroundings was darkness, without a single star shining, 
and in whose future there was confidence in only one breast, 
and in whose outcome there was the glory of a great nation. 
In the preceding chapters the reader is brought to see 
truly the situation, and may appreciate what took place 
between the Governor of Tennessee and General Jackson, 
remembering that under the Constitution the Governor was 
his superior officer, for Jackson was in command of Tennes- 
see troops — fighting, it is true, the battle of the general 
Government ; but he was only in a patriotic sense an officer 



ANDREW JACKSON. 139 

of the United States, this campaign being a Tennessee cam- 
paign so far. 

The part of the Governor's letter which General Jackson 
replied to is as follows : 

"I am incapable of willingly saying or doing anything to 
injure the service, or that which would injuriously affect 
the reputation of deserving men, or the standing of an able 
and patriotic hero and general ; but, as a friend to my Gov- 
ernment, most ardently desirous that every step taken in this 
quarter may promote the good of the service, and the stand- 
ing of those who deserve well of their country, I do not see 
what important good can grow out of your continuing at 
an advanced post, in the enemy's country, with a handful of 
brave men. Would it not, under all circumstances, be most 
likely to be attended with good consequences for you to 
return to the frontier of Tennessee, and, with your patriotic 
force, defend our frontier, where provision can be readily 
afforded on better terms to Government, bringing with you 
your baggage and supplies ; and there, on the frontier, await 
the order of the Government, or until I can be authorized to 
reinforce you, or to call a new force ? At this time, I really 
do not feel authorized to order a draft, or I would, with the 
greatest of all pleasures I could feel, do it. Were I to 
attempt it in an unauthorized way, it would injure, as I 
think, the public service, which I would rather die than do. 
I could not positively assure the men that they would be 
paid. 

'T send you a copy of the President's message, and am 
gratified to see the handsome terms he uses in speaking of 
your and of General Coffee's battles. He seems to mean 
something about Pensacola, and, to effect his object best, a 
new force should certainly be organized. Many who are 
now, and have been, on the campaign, would go again on 
that business, if they are pleased with the President's 
decision respecting their term of service, under the late 
orders. I shall, from what I have said about the propriety 
of your return to the Tennessee frontier, feel bound to send 
a copy of this to the War Department, for the information 
of Government, and by way of apology for offering such 



140 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

an opinion to an officer in the service of the United States. 
"I am, with highest respect and most sincere regard, 
"Your friend, Willie Blount." 

General Jackson's reply to this letter is as follows : 

"Had your wish that I should discharge a part of my 
force, and retire with the residue into the settlements, 
assumed the form of a positive order, it might have fur- 
nished me some apology for pursuing such a course, but by 
no means a full justification. As you would have no power 
to give such an order, I could not be inculpable in obeying, 
with my eyes open to the fatal consequences that would 
attend it. But a bare recommendation, founded, as I am 
satisfied it must be, on the artful suggestions of those fireside 
patriots who seek in a failure of the expedition an excuse 
for their own supineness, and upon the misrepresentations 
of the discontented from the army, who wish it to be believed 
that the difficulties which overcame their patriotism are 
wholly insurmountable, would afford me but a feeble shield 
against the reproaches of my country or my conscience. 
Believe me, my respected friend, the remarks I make proceed 
from the purest personal regard. If you would preserve 
your reputation, or that of the State over which you preside, 
you must take a straightforward, determined course, regard- 
less of the applause or censure of the populace, and of the 
forebodings of that dastardly and designing crew who, at 
a time like this, may be expected to clamor continually in 
your ears. The very wretches who now beset you with evil 
counsel will be the first, should the measures which they 
recommend eventuate in disaster, to call down imprecations 
on your head and load you with reproaches. Your country 
is in danger; apply its resources to its defense. Can any 
course be more plain ? Do you, my friend, at such a moment 
as the present, sit with your arms folded and your heart at 
ease, waiting a solution of your doubts and definitions of 
your powers? Do you wait for special instructions from 
the Secretary of War, which it is impossible for you to 
receive in time for the danger that threatens ? How did the 
venerable Shelby act under similar circumstances, or, rather, 
under circumstances by no means so critical ? Did he wait 



ANDREW JACKSON. 141 

for orders to do what every man of sense knew — what every 
patriot felt to be right? He did not; and yet how highly 
and justly did the Government extol his manly and energetic 
conduct! and how dear has his name become to every 
friend of his country! 

"You say that an order to bring the necessary quota of 
men into the field has been given, and that, of course, your 
power ceases ; and, although you are made sensible that the 
order has been wholly neglected, you can take no measure 
to remedy the omission. Widely different, indeed, is my 
opinion. I consider it your imperious duty when the men, 
called for by your authority, founded upon that of the 
Government, are known not to be in the field, to see that they 
be brought there; and to take immediate measures with the 
officer who, charged with the execution of your order, omits 
or neglects to do it. As the executive of the State, it is your 
duty to see that the full quota of troops be constantly kept 
in the field for the time they have been required. You are 
responsible to the Government, your officer to you. Of 
what avail is it to give an order if it be never executed, and 
may be disobeyed with impunity ? Is it by empty mandates 
that we can hope to conquer our enemies, and save our 
defenseless frontiers from butchery and devastation? 
Believe me, my valued friend, there are times when it is 
highly criminal to shrink from responsibility, or scruple 
about the exercise of our powers. There are times when 
we must disregard punctilious etiquette, and think only of 
serving our country. The enemy we have been sent to 
subdue may be said, if we stop at this, to be only exasper- 
ated. The commander in chief. General Pinckney, who 
supposes me by this time prepared for renewed operations, 
has ordered me to advance and form a junction with the 
Georgia army; and upon the expectation that I will do so 
are all his arrangements formed for the prosecution of the 
campaign. Will it do to defeat his plans, and jeopardize 
the safety of the Georgia army ? The general Government, 
too, believe, and have a right to believe, that we have now 
not less than five thousand men in the heart of the enemy's 
country; and on this opinion are all their calculations bot- 
tomed; and must they all be frustrated, and I become the 
instrument by which it is done ? God forbid ! 



142 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

"You advise me to discharge or dismiss from service, 
until the will of the President can be known, such portion 
of the militia as have rendered three months' service. This 
advice astonishes me even more than the former. I have 
no such discretionary power; and if I had, it would be 
impolitic and ruinous to exercise it. I believed the militia 
who were not specially received for a shorter period were 
engaged for six months, unless the objects of the expedition 
should be sooner attained ; and in this opinion I was greatly 
strengthened by your letter of the 15th, in which you say, 
when answering my inquiry upon this subject, 'the militia 
are detached for six months' service' ; nor did I know or 
suppose you had a different opinion until the arrival of your 
last letter. This opinion must, I suppose, agreeably to your 
request, be made known to General Roberts' brigade, and 
then the consequences are not difficult to be foreseen. 
Every man belonging to it will abandon me on the 4th of 
next month ; nor shall I have the means of preventing it but 
by the application of force, which, under such circumstances, 
I shall not be at liberty to use. I have labored hard to 
reconcile these men to a continuance in service until they 
could be honorably discharged, and had hoped I had, in a 
great measure, silcceeded ; but your opinion, operating with 
their own prejudices, will give a sanction to their conduct, 
and render useless any further attempts. They will go; 
but I can neither discharge or dismiss them. Shall I be 
told that, as they will go, it may as well be peaceably per- 
mitted ? Can that be any good reason why I should do an 
unauthorized act ? Is it a good reason why I should violate 
the order of my superior officer, and evince a willingness to 
defeat the purposes of my Government? And wherein 
does the 'sound policy' of the measures that have been rec- 
ommended consist? or in what way are they 'likely to 
promote the public good' ? Is it sound policy to abandon a 
conquest thus far made, and deliver up to havoc, or add to 
the number of our enemies, those friendly Creeks and Chero- 
kees, who, relying on our protection, have espoused our 
cause and aided us with their arms? Is it good policy to 
turn loose upon our defenseless frontiers five thousand 
exasperated savages, to reek their hands once more in the 
blood of our citizens? What! retrograde under such cir- 



ANDREW JACKSON. 143 

cumstances! I will perish first. No, I will do my duty; 
I will hold the posts I have established, until ordered to 
abandon them by the commanding general, or die in the 
struggle; long since have I determined not to seek the 
preservation of life at the sacrifice of reputation. 

"But our frontiers, it seems, are to be defended, and by 
whom ? By the very force that is now recommended to be 
dismissed — for I am first told to retire into the settlements 
and protect the frontiers; next, to discharge my troops; 
and then, that no measures can be taken for raising others. 
No, my friend ; if troops be given me, it is not by loitering 
on the frontiers that I seek to give protection ; they are to 
be defended, if defended at all, in a very different manner — 
by carrying the war into the heart of the enemy's country. 
All other hopes of defense are more visionary than dreams. 
What, then, is to be done? I'll tell you what. You have 
only to act with the energy and decision the crisis demands, 
and all will be well. Send me a force engaged for six 
months, and I will answer for the result; but withholding 
it, and all is lost — the reputation of the State, and yours, 
and mine along with it." 

This letter of General Jackson to Governor Blount is a 
part of American history which an author is unwilling to 
leave, filling up so much space and no more. It is a sign- 
board on the highway which says to the traveler, "Look 
back and remember the past," and to the seer, "Look into 
the future and tell its story to those who do not know it." 
And the author is tempted to stop and tell the muses who 
may write a play — a drama — and let the curtain rise that 
a moving and forgetful people may not only see the monarch 
of the masses as he came from an obscurity so dense that he 
did not know what State he was born in, as their ancestors 
had seen and loved him, but see him in the work to come as 
a commander of armies — showing the Indians there was a 
better business than a massacre of women and children; 
showing a Spanish Alcalde that there was a better business 
than giving shelter to a British fleet; showing the British 



144 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

Commissioners at Ghent that peace was a good thing when 
Jackson with his army had cleaned up the Indians and was 
on his way to New Orleans ; and then showing old England 
that Wellington's troops could not whip Tennessee squirrel 
hunters. ^ 

But leaving the muses, what do we see — the Governor 
getting Jackson's letter ; a converted man ; out with all his 
staff, including Jackson's two preachers, telling the story of 
Jackson with a handful of men fighting back the Fort 
Mimms murderers until he can get an army — and Tennes- 
see is aroused as never before or since, and Jackson has a 
new army and supplies to feed them. 

When this second Tennessee Army reached Jackson in 
the Indian Nation, he had lost a good many soldiers, and 
his great Lieutenant Coffee was wounded in one of two bat- 
tles he had fought to keep the Indians back. 

The letter here published is not the work of an illiterate 
man. 

If Jackson did not write this letter ; if he did not give it 
body, language, force; if it was not his thoughts, with his 
own power of expressing them, then he did have an amanu- 
ensis out in the wilderness capable of commanding an army 
himself, or of doing any other thing which exceptionally 
great men only are capable of doing; for when a man gets 
big enough to think the thoughts and put them together, 
making a structure that rides the storm like the great ship 
rides the waves, he quits taking dictation and becomes him- 
self a master instead of a servant. 

Whoever studies the conditions and then studies this 
letter, will see that while other great generals, the victors of 
battles, have made new maps, fixing new boundaries for 
their own and other countries, Jackson by this one letter, 
and by his supreme power in organizing the army which 
the letter brought him, made it possible for him to show the 
world a new map of his own beloved country — spreading 



ANDREW JACKSON. 145 

it out over land and sea, and into all countries, and on every 
shore where the stars and stripes signalize the lawful pur- 
pose of American citizenship. 

In the powerful array of facts and force of character 
which this letter exhibited, Jackson won over the Governor, 
brought back the mutinous and deserting army, and brought 
a citizen soldiery which met, conquered, and drove out of 
the country an army of double their numbers, which had 
captured Hull and saturated the soil at Frenchtown with 
American blood. 

It will be a revelation to many people that those who had 
an opportunity and did examine the files at an early day, 
have already shown that this letter was written by Jackson, 
and is in his strong, bold hand. 

The new army, which the letter brought, of near four 
thousand men, assembled at Fort Strother; supplies were 
hauled over the mountains from Tennessee. 

Leaving a force to protect his rear — for while Jackson 
knew the Indians were assembling on the Tallapoosa River 
about fifty miles south, he knew Indians were uncertain, 
and thus guarding well his rear — he took two thousand 
of the best horses and that many men and moved on the 
army. 

10 



146 LIFE AND TIMES OF 



CHAPTKR XI. 

THE EXCURSION JACKSON's REPORT TO GENERAL PINCK- 

NEY WAS A MAJOR GENERAL AND COMMANDING 

TENNESSEE MILITIA^ REPORTING TO UNITED STATES 

OFFICER BATTLE OF EMUCKFAU AND ENOCTACHOPOC 

GENERAL COFFEE WOUNDED — JACKSON AND HIS 

COMPANY OF OFFICERS — STARVATION AND MUTINY, 
BUT NO RETREAT FOR JACKSON. 

CONTINUING the subject under discussion in the 
last chapter, Governor Blount's letter of the 23d of 
December, 181 3, and General Jackson's reply, as 
indicating a condition of affairs than which nothing could 
be darker in the outlook, and believing that to know General 
Jackson the light should be let in on every phase of the 
Creek campaign, I shall quote somewhat at large from 
Putnam Waldo's 'TLife of Jackson." Mr. Waldo was a 
citizen of Massachusetts, was an honest believer in General 
Jackson, a thoroughly capable writer, and wrote his life of 
Jackson only four years after the close of the Creek cam- 
paign — that is, in 1818. This book, a small volume, is 
valuable in many respects. It was written when there was 
reliable evidence to be had about the Jackson family, the 
mother of the great soldier and her trials in desperate pov- 
erty, and how she instilled into the minds of her boys senti- 
ments of patriotism. Patriotism with her meant nursing 
the sick and wounded in the Revolution, and death to the 
British. General Jackson's critical and responsible position 
is well stated by this faithful biographer in some extracts, 
including a letter written from Huntsville the same day, 



ANDREW JACKSON. 147 

December 23d, on which Governor Blount wrote the letter 
to General Jackson. Mr. Waldo says: 

"Soon after the battle of Talladega, Brigadier General 
Coffee's mounted volunteers and cavalry were permitted to 
retire into the settlements to recruit their horses. They 
were to rendezvous at Huntsville, in Mississippi Territory, 
upon the 8th of December, where General Coffee was dan- 
gerously sick. Upon this excellent officer and his gallant 
men General Jackson placed the most confident reliance. 
They rendezvoused upon the 8th, but they had caught the 
infection that pervaded the infantry — the fever of home 
and home ties. They, however, proceeded towards head- 
quarters; but they were no longer the 'men they were.' 
It must always be admitted that they had already rendered 
essential service to their country, and it was the reputation 
they had acquired that rendered it desirable to have them 
continue in the service. General Jackson, seconded in his 
views by the gallant Coffee and by many patriots of the first 
water, exerted again his great powers, but exerted them in 
vain. Governor Blount ordered the volunteers to be dis- 
missed, and they returned home. 

"General Jackson was now in a situation which required 
all the fortitude of the man, all the nerve of the soldier, 
and all the sagacity of the statesman. He held frequent 
communications with Governor Blount, of Tennessee ; Gov- 
ernor Early, of Georgia, and Major General Pinckney, and 
his opinion seemed to be a guide for theirs. Certain it is 
that Governor Blount, towards the close of 181 3, owing to 
the disaffection of the Tennessee troops, and the reluctance 
with which volunteers appeared, recommended an abandon- 
ment of the expedition into the Creek country. The urgent 
and cogent expostulations of General Jackson induced him 
to change his opinion, and to resort to the most energetic 
measures to prosecute the war, which had been so success- 
fully commenced by him." 

Perhaps the situation of General Jackson at this time 

cannot be better described than it is in the following letter, 
written by a gentleman known by the author to be of the 
first respectability: 



148 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

"HuNTSViLLE, M. T., December 23, 18 13. 
"Since the battle of Tallehatchie and Talladega, the army 
of General Jackson has crumbled to pieces. The whole of 
his volunteer infantry are returning home, insisting that 
their time of service expired on the loth of the month, being 
the anniversary of their rendezvous at Nashville. (These 
were troops who had volunteered for the Natchez cam- 
paign.) The General, however, did not discharge them; 
the decision is left with the Governor of Tennessee. What 
he' will do is not yet known. The universal impression, 
however, is that they will be discharged. Yet nothing is 
more clear than that they have not served twelve months, 
and they were by law to serve twelve months in a period of 
two years, unless sooner discharged. The General's force 
now at Fort Strother, Ten Islands of Coosa, may amount 
to about 1,500 men, chiefly drafted militia. Of these nearly 
the whole will be entitled to discharge about the 4th of the 
ensuing month. It is supposed that not more than 150 or 
200 (who are attached to the General personally, and will 
remain through motives of affection) will be left with him 
after that day. Doubtless you know that the brigade of 
cavalry volunteers and mounted riflemen, under the com- 
mand of General Coffee, were sometime since ordered into 
the settlements to recruit their horses for a few days, and 
procure new ones." 

In this dark hour, and while his letter and the Governor's 
proclamation and the appeals of Cartwright and Blackburn, 
under the inspiration of Jackson, were working out his final 
purpose of raising a new army in Tennessee, General Jack- 
son, with his faithful Coffee and Carroll, and such raw 
troops as they could bring to him, made an excursion further 
into the Indian Nation, This was done from two consid- 
erations: First, to hold the great body of the Indians in 
check until he got ready to attack them; and, second, to 
keep his new recruits from the effects of idleness in camp. 
After he made this excursion, he made a report to Major 
General Pinckney, from which I make, the following extract : 



ANDREW JACKSON. 149 

"Major General Jackson, of Tennessee Volunteers, to Major 
General Pinckney, of the United States Army: 

"Headquarters, Fort Strother, January 29, 1814. 
"Major General Thomas Pinckney: 

"Sir — I had the honor of informing- you in a letter of 
the 31st ult. (express) of an excursion I contemplated 
making still further in the enemy's country with the new- 
raised volunteers from Tennessee. I had ordered these 
troops to form a junction with me on the loth instant, but 
they did not arrive until the 14th instant. Their number, 
including officers, was about 800, and on the 1 5th I marched 
them across the river to graze their horses. On the next 
day I followed with the remainder of my force, consisting 
of the artillery company with one six-pounder, one company 
of infantry of forty-eight men, two companies of spies — 
commanded by Captains Gordon and Russell — of about 
300 men each, and a company of volunteer officers headed 
by General Coffee, who had been abandoned by his men, and 
who still remained in the field awaiting the orders of the 
Government, making my force, exclusive of the Indians, 
930." 

This report is continued at great length — perhaps 2,000 
words — showing all the details of this excursion. It is 
now cut down to a few paragraphs. As this work was first 
written, it was deemed necessary to publish much that it is 
now found space will not allow. But this report, in its 
minute details, is truly characteristic of a man whose life has 
been misunderstood by the American people, because Mr. 
Parton, along with other untruths, has told his readers that 
Jackson was greatly lacking in business qualities, while in 
all our wars there is no record of any general in the war 
office that is so complete; the truth is, his reports make a 
complete history of his service, including, as no other gen- 
eral has done, the parts performed by subordinates, giving 
in detail the movements of the army and how the orders 
were obeyed. This report, like many others that must be 



150 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

cut down, is a full and complete history of the excursion. 
The report closes with the following : 

"In these several engagements our loss was 20 killed and 
75 wounded, four of whom have died since. The loss of 
the enemy cannot be accurately ascertained — 189 of their 
warriors were found dead; but this must fall considerably 
short of the number really killed. Their wounded can only 
be guessed at. Had it not been for the unfortunate retreat 
of the rear guard in the affair of the 24th instant, I think I 
could safely have said that no army of militia ever acted 
with more cool and deliberate bravery, undisciplined and 
inexperienced as they were. Their conduct in the several 
engagements of the 22d could not have been surpassed by 
regulars. No army ever met the approach of an enemy with 
more intrepidity, or repulsed them with more energy. On 
the 24th, after the retreat of the rear guard, they seemed to 
have lost all their collectedness, and were more difficult to be 
restored to order than any troops I had ever seen. But this 
was no doubt owing in great measure, or altogether, to that 
very retreat, and ought rather to be ascribed to the want of 
courage in many of their officers than any cowardice in the 
men, who, on every occasion, have manifested a willingness 
to perform their duty, so far as they knew it. 

"All the effects which were designed to be produced by 
this excursion it is believed have been produced. If an 
attack was meditated against Fort Armstrong, that has been 
prevented. If General Floyd is operating on the east side 
of the Tallapoosa, as I suppose him to be, a most fortunate 
diversion has been made in his favor. The number of the 
enemy has been diminished, and the confidence they may 
have derived from the delays I have been made to experience 
has been destroyed. Discontent has been kept out of the 
army, while the troops who would have been exposed to it 
have been beneficially employed. The enemy's country has 
been explored, and a road cut to the point where their forces 
will probably be concentrated, when they shall be driven 
from the country below. But in a report of this kind, and 
to you, who will immediately perceive them, it is not neces- 
sary to state the happy consequences which may be expected 
to result from this excursion. Unless I am greatly mistaken, 



ANDREW JACKSON. 151 

it will be found to have hastened the termination of the 
Creek War more effectually than any measure I could have 
taken with the troops under my command. I am, with 
sentiments of high respect. 

"Your obedient servant, 

"Andrew Jackson, Major General." 

General Jackson calls this an excursion ; he does not dig- 
nify it as a campaign. 

The few men that General Carroll had been able to gather 
up and bring to General Jackson about the time, and while 
the soldiers who had fought the battles of Tallahassie and 
Talladega were on the way home, had only enlisted for two 
months — it was with them a frolic out in the Indian country. 

From the 15th of December, 181 3, to the 15th of January, 
18 14, General Jackson was tried as no other general at the 
head of an army in this country, or perhaps in any other 
country, has been. He was a Major General commanding 
State Militia, called out by the Governor, paid by the State, 
and was dependent on the Governor's call for an army, and 
subject to the orders of a Major General of the United 
States Army, the United States being at war with Great 
Britain; and the Indians, the Creeks, whom Jackson was 
fighting, being England's greatest ally. The Governor of 
the State was ordering him to bring his army back into the 
State, where it could be fed, but a United States Major 
General was ordering him to hold every position he had 
taken, while the soldiers, acting under the inspiration of the 
public sentiment — known to have the sympathy of the 
Governor — were returning to the State where they could 
be fed, and disperse if they chose, and in the belief that their 
time of service had expired, leaving Jackson in the wilder- 
ness with a few men who had made up their minds to stay 
with him and die. 

To this bodyguard — for it was nothing more — the lively 
squirrel hunters, which Carroll and Roberts had picked up 



152 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

in Tennessee, were added. But while his troops were leav- 
ing, and before the 5th of January, Jackson was apprised of 
the call made by the Governor under the inspiration of his 
letter for a new army. As a diversion, he made the excur- 
sion and fought the two battles of Emuckfau and Enocta- 
chopoc. Of these two battles Mr. Waldo says : 

"When it is considered what troops General Jackson had 
to command and what enemies he had to fight, the two vic- 
tories of Emuckfau, on the 22d, and the signal one at 
Enoctachopoc, on the 24th, will bear a comparison with any 
in modern warfare. The liberal applause the General 
bestows on the brave, and the excuse he finds for those 
whose 'retreat ought to be rather ascribed to the want of 
courage in many of their officers than to any cowardice of 
the men,' must endear him forever to the soldier. The 
'venerable Cocke' (who survived) and the brave Lieutenant 
Armstrong and Captains Hamilton and Quarles (who fell) 
are placed by the General's report upon the rolls of fame." 

And of the second battle, Eaton, in his "Life of Jackson," 
says: 

"The conduct of General Coffee in the second engagement 
was eminently praiseworthy. Wounded in the first battle, 
he was carried to the scene of the second on a litter. When 
the retreat of the rear guard threw the army into confusion 
and peril, he mounted his horse and rode wherever the 
danger was the greatest, inspiring the men by his presence, 
his words, and his example, and contributing most power- 
fully to restore the fortunes of the day. Jackson himself 
was a lion on this occasion." 

And Major Eaton further says : 

"Besides being supported by other testimony, is in itself 
probable. But for him everything would have gone to ruin. 
On him all hopes were rested. In that moment of confusion 
he was the rallying point even for the spirits of the brave. 
Firm and energetic, and at the same time perfectly self- 



ANDREW JACKSON. 153 

possessed, his example and his authority alike contributed to 
arrest the flying, and to give confidence to those who main- 
tained their ground. Cowards forgot their panic and 
fronted danger when they heard his voice and beheld his 
manner, and the brave would have formed around his body 
a rampart of their own. In the midst of showers of balls, 
of which he seemed unmindful, he was seen performing the 
duties of the subordinate officers, rallying the alarmed, halt- 
ing them in their flight, forming his columns, and inspiriting 
them by his example." 

In this last battle General Coffee was wounded; his 
brother-in-law, Sandy Donelson, fighting by his side, was 
killed. 

On the 28th General Coffee wrote to his father-in-law, 
Captain Donelson, an account of the battle. I make the 
following extracts : 

"We have to record," began Coffee with admirable and 
awkward delicacy, "the proceedings of another excursion 
into the interior of the enemy's country, and, although we 
have met with success, it is marked with circumstances of 
regret and misfortune that are serious to the friends of those 
brave men whose lives have been lost in achieving the victo- 
ries that have been obtained. Painful as it is, I must inform 
you that Sandy Donelson was among the slain. He fell by 
a ball through his head, near me, a few minutes after I 
had received a wound by a ball through my side, but not 
dangerous. 

"In a state of war the lives of men must be lost ; and the 
only circumstances that leave us any satisfaction for our 
departed friends is, when they have acted their part well and 
fallen bravely defending the Government, we are bound to 
protect, and in that your son was exceeded by none. He 
fell in the fourth battle that he had fought by my side, and 
I can with certainty say that a braver man never lived. He 
is no more, but his death has been glorious. He has 
bequeathed his friends a valuable inheritance in the charac- 
ter he has acquired to his memory ; and while we, his friends, 
lament his loss in the bloom of life, we may rejoice at the 



154 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

honorable station in wliich his memor}' is placed, and which 

is beyond the reach of strife and en\y 

"Our great loss has been occasioned by our troops being 
raw and undisciplined, commanded by officers of the same 
description. Had I had my old regiment of cavalry-, I could 
have driven the enemy wherever I met them without loss. 
But speculation had taken them out of the field, and thus 
we have suffered for them. Their advisers ought to suffer 
death for their unwarranted conduct, and 1 hope our in j ured 
citizens will treat them with the contempt they so justly 
deser\-e." 

The accoimt here given of this "excursion," including the 
tvvo battles of Emuckfau and Enoctachopoc, and the long 
report made by General Jackson, with the comments of his 
early biographers, and extracts from the letter of General 
Coffee, may seem prolix, but the histor}^ of the Creek cam- 
paign would never be fully understood without General 
Jackson's explanations about the "excursion." 

Indeed, to take it in all its phases — an army deserted, a 
single company made up of faithful officers who refused to 
leave their commander in the wilderness by himself, with 
the woods full of fiendish savages, a few friendly Indians, 
and a few hundred picked-up squirrel hunters out on a frolic 
of tsvo months, commanded by officers — officers as much 
lacking in soldier qualities as they — and this campaign, 
"excursion," and the two battles, form one of the most inter- 
esting incidents in the life of this great General, whose 
wonderful career is made up of expedients and experiments, 
aU of which were successes that became historic triumphs. 

Through all this trial of starvation, mutiny, and wholesale 
desertion, w^hile combatting the polic}' of the government of 
his State, unable for the lack of men to advance, and, indeed, 
only by a faith, as mysterious and sublime as that of 
Abraham in offering his son on the altar, did he, with a 
handful of personal followers, remain in the wilderness, 



^/^ 



a 



ANDREW JACKSON. 155 

holding what he had gained — thoroughly keeping the 
Indians from the frontiers till he got ready to fight the final 
battle with them, then assembling at the Horse Shoe. 

The faith of General Jackson, if it was not a religious 
faith, is an incomprehensible mystery. No other man hold- 
ing the destinies of a great nation in his hands ever had it. 

From the day the war was declared, in June, 1812, 
Jackson sought position in the army. He had been in both 
Houses of Congress, once resigning aad once quit. He 
had resigned the office of Judge of the Supreme Court — 
being unwilling to hold but one public office, major general 
of the militia — believing with a religious faith in the pre- 
destination of a soldier's life. 

After the war came he begged the Government to let him 
take his Tennessee Militia and go to the Canadian line and 
redeem the soldier quality of the United States Army, and 
never doubted but he could do it. While held in camp at 
Natchez as a promoter of Wilkinson's ambition, he appealed 
to the Secretary of War to be sent to the Canadian line. 

When the day came to disband his army, he risked all and 
refused to obey the order, never doubting that he would 
show the Government that he knew more than the Secretary 
of War did, and that to disobey the order was an imperative 
duty. 

When the committee went and reported the massacre at 
Fort Mimms, sixteen days after he had been so severely 
wounded, the surgeons drove the committee out of the room ; 
he drove the surgeons out, got out of bed and took command 
of the army, with the undying faith of his own judgment as 
to his powers of recuperation. 

When the Governor of the State ordered him to bring his 
army back to Tennessee, and his army left him and went 
home, he doubted the wisdom of such action, and with a 
Christian's faith remained in the wilderness and raised a 
new army; destroyed the Creek Nation — the enemy's 



156 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

great ally, in one single battle; went into a Spanish prov- 
ince over a refusal on the part of his Government to give 
permission, deposed the Spanish Governor, and then turned 
on New Orleans and drove the British army back into the 
sea, and never had a doubt about success — though he had 
an army of squirrel hunters, clothed in hunting shirts and 
coonskin caps — one-third of them without guns, and fight- 
ing a trained army of the most warlike people in the world. 

The campaign which General Jackson in his enlarged 
appreciation of military services calls an excursion is like 
many other events in Jackson's life — it was one of many 
episodes, one climax after another, on which the greatest 
issues turned, and from each of which the lines of subse- 
quent history radiated, and by which and over which bio- 
graphical histories must be drawn. 

Let a well-informed Tennessean put his imagination to 
work. Suppose when Jackson was ordered by the Secretary 
of War to disband his army at Natchez in the wilderness, 
and with the transportation as it was turned over to Major 
General Wilkinson, at New Orleans — evidently intended 
for Wilkinson to recruit an army out of the stragglers, men 
who could not get back home — suppose Jackson, who at 
that time was a doubtful quantity with the Government, 
while Wilkinson had been made a Major General, but when 
sent North soon after turned out to be more than a failure — 
really an upstart — had obeyed this order, left his men in 
the wilderness, soured and turned his back on the Govern- 
ment, the grandest chapter in American history would be 
left out — to wit : the Southwest putting an end to Indian 
wars, putting the flag back on the Capitol that the British 
army had taken down, and, above all, a revival — indeed, 
a restoration of a martial spirit which had almost disap- 
peared from the effects of repeated victories at the North 
over our troops. 

Suppose when the news came of the awful massacre at 



ANDREW JACKSON. I57 

Fort Mimms, General Jackson had listened to his surgeons 
who would have made the history that brings us out of the 
darkest day into the brightest morning. 

Suppose Jackson had obeyed the order of the Governor 
and turned back in front of 10,000 Creek warriors, or sup- 
pose he had heeded the threat found in the refusal to permit 
his going to Pensacola, or suppose he had abandoned the 
campaign when his soldiers in a body left him out in the 
Indian's country with a mere handful of men ? 

Indeed, General Jackson's whole life is a history-makino- 
map. -^ *= 

Coming back to the critical period when the entire 
army out in the Indian Nation were starving and in a state 
of mutiny — in large bodies going back home with the 
approval of the Governor of the State, what shall be said ? 
Who can write the story of Andrew Jackson from the 
moment when in front of a starving mutinous army, and in 
disobedience of the Governor's order, he stood in front and 
uttered these immortal words : "If one single man will stay 
with me, I will stay and die in the wilderness" ? 

And who can estimate the devotion to a great leader of 
Capt. Thomas Kennedy Gordon, when he stepped out and 
said : "General, I will stay and die with you" ? 

Out of the whole army 109 men stepped out and said 
"We will stay." Then Jackson's two lieutenants, Carroll 
and Coffee, always as true to him as the stars that stay and 
move about the great Jupiter are to the king of the heavens, 
standing by the old hero, said one of them : "I will go back 
to the frontiers and say Jackson wants soldiers"; and the 
other said : "I will make a captain's company and lead it, of 
officers whose men have left them." And then it was in this 
dire emergency— the seeming dread day of a great general's 
discomfiture, that there came an offer of sacrifice to liberty 
as truly gallant, if not as tragic, as when the 300 Spartans 
died in the mountain pass to save the city. 



158 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

And why is this chapter left out of American history — 
except as Mr. Waldo and Mr. Eaton made note of it in 1817 
and 1 81 8 — and in its details only found in the archives at 
Washington as parts of a great bundle of reports made 
about ninety years ago by a general who knew how and 
what to write, as well as he knew how and when to fight? 
The country at large has known little or nothing of the dark 
day of the Creek campaign, called by Jackson an excursion, 
but known to England's greatest warrior, who, after reading 
it, pronounced Jackson one of the world's greatest generals. 

For daring courage with life in hand there is nothing in 
the history of war that exceeds this "excursion" — one 
lieutenant crossing the mountain to pick up squirrel hunters 
and the other organizing a captain's company of deserted 
officers to stay in the wilderness and fight back 10,000 
Creeks then assembling at the Horse Shoe, and doing it 
until Carroll made a second trip to Tennessee, and raised 
another army to fight at the last battle. 

And the victories at Emuckfau and Enoctachopoc, as 
Major Eaton says, will compare with anything in modern 
warfare — and thus saving the women and children on the 
frontiers of two States, is a chapter, like the one dropped 
out, of the Battle of Mobile, which must be restored that 
posterity may see it. 



ANDREW JACKSON. 159 



CHAPTI)R XII. 

THE BATTLE OF THE HORSE SHOE SKETCH OF THE LIFE 

OF SAM HOUSTON INCLUDING GOVERNOR HOUSTON'S 

LETTER RESIGNING THE OFFICE OF GOVERNOR. 

AFTER the termination of what General Jackson 
called an excursion, but which really was a cam- 
paign, and in which he fought two battles which 
told effectually in the general campaign against the Creek 
Indians, and while waiting on the reorganization of the 
army, two unpleasant events occurred, which must be 
recorded to make this part of his life complete. One was 
his ordering the arrest of General Cocke, who was in com- 
mand of the East Tennessee forces, and moving to Fort 
Strother. 

The whole history of this affair shows that General Jack- 
son was misled through information by designing men. 
The order was peremptory, and to an officer under General 
Cocke to arrest him. He was arrested; the charge was 
that he was encouraging a mutinous spirit in the army. It 
turned out that the officer who took command after the 
arrest was he who had furnished the information upon 
which he was arrested. 

The charge was a grave one, and General Cocke was sus- 
pended, and finally tried when the campaign was over by a 
court-martial and honorably acquitted, it being conclusively 
shown that there was not only no cause for suspicion, but 
as an officer he was doing all in his power to prevent mutiny 
and bring the campaign to a successful close. 

The other affair was one that had much to do with the 
future political campaigns of General Jackson. Through 



160 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

his whole life the trial, conviction, and execution of John 
Woods was brought up against him. Woods was charged 
with mutiny and desertion, which was not denied, but was 
greatly aggravated by a show of arms and a threat to shoot 
when he was arrested. He was put on trial by a court- 
martial, officers of high rank being selected to try him, and 
when the trial was going on. General Jackson, showing his 
intense anxiety about it and what great responsibility might 
fall upon him, walked excitedly before the court and said to 
the judges: "Be cautious and mind what you are about; 
for, by the Eternal God, the next man that is condemned 
will not be pardoned; and this is a hale, hearty young 
fellow." The court convicted him, and with all the appli- 
cations that were made to General Jackson, which were 
numerous, he refused to pardon him, and he was executed. 

The enemies of General Jackson never ceased to use this 
against him, the execution of the soldier, whom they held 
up before the public as a poor young man shot to death by 
the order of General Jackson. The time has come when 
this sad affair should be looked at in its true light. If any 
man in America understood soldier life and a commander's 
duty, it was General Jackson. He looked at it from every 
side, and such had been the effect of mutiny, desertion, and 
disobedience, that no man ever more fully realized the neces- 
sity of an example than did General Jackson. 

As shown in former articles, his soldiers in great bodies 
had become mutinous, and by their conduct had left him 
with a few faithful followers in the wilderness, subject to 
be shot by the savages any day. The last of the two battles 
in the excursion, which had just ended, no doubt greatly 
impressed General Jackson in his decision confirming the 
action of the court-martial in having Woods executed. In 
a former article, it is fully shown that the want of discipline 
among officers and men was the main cause of the disaster 



ANDREIV JACKSON. 161 

resulting in the death of several of his bravest officers and 
the wounding of General Coffee. 

The execution of Woods was, perhaps, General Jackson's 
greatest trial. A man of warm heart, devoted to his sol- 
diers, and always, when he could, excusing them for their 
mistakes ; yet he had seen enough to know that an example 
had to be made if he kept his army in condition for the great 
campaign that was just ahead of him. All who have 
written upon the subject, who were in position to know, 
have shown how this example, terrible as it was, affected the 
army and improved its condition. 

Immediately after this campaign, and as the news came 
back from Tennessee, General Jackson became satisfied as 
to the effect of his letter and the proclamation of the Gov- 
ernor. The news from every quarter that the State was 
alive — stimulated by his success — to the need of soldiers 
to finish the campaign, and such had been the activity of the 
recruiting officers put out by the Governor and of General 
Jacksons' friends, under the inspiration of his letter, that in 
an incredibly short time he had 2,000 men at Huntsville on 
the way to him from West Tennessee, and 2,000 men from 
East Tennessee, and under the influence of Hugh L. White, 
one regiment of regulars under John Williams, so that from 
darkest night he came into brightest day, with 4,000 men to 
fight the last great battle with the Creek Nation — a battle 
memorable in history, known as the Battle of the Horse 
Shoe, and which was probably the most sanguinary hand-to- 
hand battle that was ever fought on this continent. 

The Indians had assembled at a bend in the Tallapoosa 
River, and from the shape of the bend the battle has always 
been known as the Battle of the Horse Shoe. Not only the 
warriors of the Creek Nation were there, but they had col- 
lected the warriors in sympathy with them from other tribes. 
The Indians were thoroughly apprised of General Jackson's 

preparations for this final struggle for their overthrow, and, 
n 



]62 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

carrying out the pledge made to Tecumseh that they would 
show no quarter and ask none, they assembled in this bend 
of the river and built fortifications from bank to bank, show- 
ing their determination to make the final stand against 
General Jackson's army, and to cut themselves off from 
retreat. 

General Jackson had left a large part of his force in the 
rear to hold what he had already gained, but had with him 
about 2,000 men. Finding the condition of the Indians in 
this bend of the river, he prepared to assault their breast- 
works, and in the meantime sent General Coffee with his 
command across the river to get in the rear and prevent the 
escape of the Indians, if they undertook to cross. 

The fight from the breastworks was desperate and deadly 
on both sides — the white men on the one side, and the 
Indians on the other, shooting from their portholes. The 
dead on both sides were piled up ; the battle lasted a good 
part of the day, and until away into the night. Not ari 
Indian asked for quarter; and after Jackson's men had 
scaled the breastworks and got inside, hundreds were killed 
in the hand-to-hand fight. The loss was severe in Jackson's 
army, but it was destruction to the Creek Nation, and was 
the end of the campaign. 

One incident occurred during this battle that marks the 
beginning of a career as romantic as that of Jackson's. In 
more ways than as a great victory in war does this great 
battle emphasize a page in our history. It brought before 
the American people one of the most remarkable men that 
modern civilization has produced. An obscure boy, the 
son of a widow who lived in Blount County, Tennessee, as 
a private, was in the fight ; and in the hottest of the battle, 
when men on both sides were being shot down through the 
open spaces of the Indian fortifications, he mounted the 
wall and jumped inside among the Indians. As he scaled 
the wall he was shot in the thigh with a poisoned arrow. 



ANDREW JACKSON. 163 

making a wound that lasted through his Hfe. Others fol- 
lowed the example, and the hand-to-hand fight commenced 
that ended with breaking the power of the Creek Nation. 
This brave boy was Sam Houston. 

Houston was brought back over the wall, and the arrow 
pulled out after several attempts had failed. General 
Jackson passed by and saw his terrible wound, ordered him 
to be taken to the rear, and passed on ; but Houston got up, 
climbed over the wall, and continued to fight to the close. 
After the battle his case seemed hopeless. The war being 
now ended, so far as the Creeks were concerned, his friends, 
on account of his daring courage, carried him on a 
litter back to his widowed mother in East Tennessee, After 
many months hanging between life and death, he recovered, 
and was made a lieutenant in the regular army on the report 
of General Jackson of his bravery, I trust the Government 
will never cease to recognize exceptional examples of 
courage like this, and the case of Hobson of the navy, and 
of young Richard Walker in the Philippines. 

It will not be out of place here to give an outline of the 
life of General Houston, especially as his life was so inter- 
woven with that of Andrew Jackson, If the romance of 
soldier life, daring and successful, shall be incorporated into 
American history so as to find a place in the drama, Andrew 
Jackson and Sam Houston will be the stars. 

Sam Houston was born on March 2, 1793. His father 
died when he was a child, and on the death of his father, in 
Rockbridge County, Virginia, his mother moved to Tennes- 
see and settled in Blount County, near the Cherokee line. 
He was Scotch-Irish, and received but little education; 
spent much of his time with the Indians when a boy, by one 
of whom he was adopted. These were the Cherokee 
Indians, for whom he always had the warmest affection. 
He studied law in Nashville in 181 8, commenced practice 
at Lebanon, and was made District Attorney; then was 



164 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

appointed adjutant general of the State; then was made 
major general of the State militia. In 1823 he was elected 
to Congress, and in 1825 re-elected. During his last term 
he fought a duel with General White. 

In 1827 he was elected Governor; soon afterward married 
Miss Allen, of Sumner County, Tennessee, from whom he 
separated a few weeks after the marriage, sending his resig- 
nation to the Senate, and writing a letter to his father-in- 
law. He immediately left the State, went up the Arkansas 
River and settled among the Cherokee Indians, a part of 
whom had gone to that country, and made his home with the 
old Indian who had once adopted him. He was sent to 
Washington to represent the Indians in a matter with the 
General Government, and went there in the garb of an 
Indian Chief. While in Washington he attacked one Stan- 
berry, a member of Congress, in the street for some insult, 
and severely chastised him. He was brought before the 
House for contempt, and the doubtful question raised as to 
whether an assault on a member of Congress on the street 
was a contempt of the House. He was reprimanded and 
discharged. 

Soon after he made a trip to Texas, and was elected to the 
Convention which was held to form a Constitution; then 
helped to establish a provisional government, and was made 
commander in chief of the Army of Texas. He was elected 
a member of the Convention that adopted the Declaration of 
Independence, March 2, 1836, after which he was again 
elected commander in chief of the army. 

The Mexicans, under Santa Anna, began an invasion of 
Texas with an army of 5,000 strong. They murdered 185 
men at the Alamo, among whom and the leader, was Davy 
Crockett, who had fought with Houston in the Battle of the 
Horse Shoe. The Mexicans then captured Goliad and put 
500 men to death. Houston collected an army of 750 men, 
part of his militia, and attacked Santa Anna, at San 



ANDREW JACKSON. 165 

Jacinto, with i,8oo men. The battle cry was, "Remember 
the Alamo !" The fight lasted less than an hour. The loss 
of the Mexicans was 630 killed ; 730 prisoners were taken, 
among- them Santa Anna, who was sent to the United States. 
Houston was elected President of the Republic of Texas. 
The Congress of Texas passed a bill making him dictator, 
and appropriating a large body of land for the defense 
against a second invasion of Texas. Houston vetoed these 
bills, and laid emphasis on the one making him dictator. 
He brought Texas into the Union. In 1846 Houston 
entered the United States Senate, and served until he was 
elected Governor of the State. He voted for all compro- 
mise measures during the slavery agitation. The State 
seceded, and Houston was a Union man and refused to take 
the oath of office required. In 1840 he married Margaret 
Mozett, having been divorced from his first wife. 

It may be of interest to say that he never disclosed the 
secret of the separation. He wrote his father-in-law the 
next day after the separation, taking the blame on himself. 
Col. Willoughby Williams told the writer that he had a talk 
with him at the time of the separation, and that he did not 
disclose its cause, and that thirty-five years afterward he 
traveled with him on a steamboat for four days and talked 
of old matters, and he did not then disclose it. 

There are two incidents in his life which I may especially 
mention. 

During his first term in Congress — he represented the 
Nashville district — he took a fancy to a boy who lived at 
Franklin, in Williamson County, and set about trying to do 
something for him. Legislation had been recently had for 
establishing what has since come to be, and what is known 
as, the coast survey, and in this he found a place for this 
boy, and had him appointed. The occupation led the young 
man to the study of the sea, the winds and the currents, and 



166 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

developed into the greatest, certainly the most valuable, 
scientist this coimtn* has produced — Lieutenant ^Maun*. 

The other incident in his life was the contest between him 
and Mr. Bell for the nomination for the presidency in i860. 
The convention met at Baltimore. It was called a W'hig 
Convention, and has always been spoken of as the dying 
struggle of that party. It was not. properly speaking, a 
\\'hig Convention ; it was a Union Convention. Many of 
the Whigs of the Northern States had joined the Republican 
party, but the Whigs of the South were making a desperate 
effort to save the Union. The platform had but nine words 
in it: "The Union, the Constitution, the enforcement of 
the laws."' 

The divided ranks of the Democratic party made its 
success over the Republican party impossible. Strong 
Whig delegations from Northern States came, urging the 
nomination of some great popular leader who had always 
been a Democrat, but was thoroughly identified with the 
Whigs in the effort to save the Union. The Tennessee 
delegation was generally committed to ^Mr. Bell. But 
Texas put up Sam Houston, backed up by a large and unan- 
imous delegation from New York. No convention was 
ever held where the leaders had the cause more at heart. 
The cr\' was Union against disunion. Tennessee put up as 
her orator, Gustavus A. Henr}-. and the papers announced 
that he was a descendant of the great Patrick, and as great 
an orator. The speech for "The Union, the Constitution, 
the enforcement of the laws,'* carried the convention off its 
feet. It was, perhaps, the greatest speech that great orator 
ever made. The city was wild over it. New York, 500 
streng, seconded the nomination of Sam Houston, and put 
up a man named Gerard. He was stoop-shouldered, had 
sandy gray hair, a pale, chilly face, and looked as lifeless as 
a Confederate dollar bill at the close of the war. 

We thought it was a joke, but the New Yorkers knew 



ANDREW JACKSON. 167 

their man. He said : "We can't carry New York with Mr. 
Bell, but we can carry it for Sam Houston," electrifying the 
convention by emphasizing the "o" and adding the '"e" to 
the name. He said : "What Xew York wanted in a presi- 
dential race was a man like Sam Houston, that they could 
paint on one side of their banners killing an Indian, and on 
the other side eating him up." He drew the picture of 
Houston, the boy, scaling the Indian fortifications in the 
great war, and fighting a hand-to-hand fight with the 
savage allies of old England, in a war which, he said, was as 
much a fight for the Union as the one we were now making, 
or as Washington's war was; then his soldier comrades 
carried the boy back to his mother on a litter. He said the 
country had greatly honored him — the President recog- 
nized his daring courage. From the verj' home of the 
immortal Jackson the people had sent him to Congress, and 
he was representing now the State he had brought into the 
Union in the upper branch of Congress. 

He drew a picture between him and Corolanus. He said : 
"Like Corolanus, he had gone out in single combat against 
the enemies of his country. Like Corolanus, in trouble, he 
left his country and lived with strangers, leaving wife and 
mother. Like Corolanus, he became a great leader and 
commander of great armies, but, unlike Corolanus, who 
brought back a great army to destroy Rome, instead, he 
came back into the Union that was dearer than life, and 
brought with him the work of his own hands, an empire, 
and laid it down in the lap of the great Republic." 

"Give us this man," he said, "a man whose blood once 
ran like water in defense of the Union now imperiled ; the 
man who fought the Indians when they were enemies, and 
then lived with them when friends, taking the place of a 
chief ; the man who had been Governor of two States ; the 
man who had drawn his sword in defense of two Republics. 
been President of one, and was now on his way to that high 



168 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

office in the other. Give us this man," he said, "who now 
puts his party behind him and stands for the Union — fights 
all his enemies — and carrying on his body to this day the 
witness of the blood he shed for it ; a man like old Jackson, 
who knows no party when enemies attack his beloved Union. 
Give us this man and we will decorate the city of New York 
with banners, paint it red, go to the country, and with the 
emblems of devotion to the Union, sprinkle the blood of its 
defender on the lintels of every door." 

The speech, great as it was, died with the struggle, but 
forty years leaves it ringing in my head. Bell was nomi- 
nated by a majority of eleven votes. The author of these 
memoirs voted for Houston. The others of the delegation 
voted for Bell, under the lead of the Hon. Edwin H. Ewing, 
who was chairman. If the Tennessee delegation had voted 
for Houston he would have been nominated. In giving the 
scene at the Whig Convention — more especially the speech 
of Gerard, I do not claim to give the words — only the 
points made and the substance. No report was made at the 
time, but it was a speech made to save the Union, and forty- 
two years have not effaced its grandeur. 

Upon the calamity of separating from his young wife, 
only a few weeks after marriage, the first impulse of his 
noble nature was that, with a cloud upon his private life, the 
office of Governor, with which the people had but recently 
honored him, should no longer be held by him. This was 
the refinement of delicacy in the discharge of a public trust, 
and uncovering the inner man, which is always found in the 
heart of a truly great soldier. 

In the Tennessee Historical Society I have found, and 
here copy, what the present generation has never seen — the 
letter of Governor Houston, written the day he separated 
from his wife, resigning the office of Governor. The orig- 
inal is in a small, round hand, signed in his clear, bold hand, 
without an error in spelling or punctuation, and would 



ANDREW JACKSON. 169 

pass for the product of a man of high literary attainments. 
In sentiment dehcate in touching his great family affliction, 
and beautifully remembering the nation's great soldier, who 
had been more than a father to him, and in separating from 
a people who had so honored him, no attainment in litera- 
ture could improve it : 

"Executive Office, Nashville, Tenn., 

"i6th April, 1827. 

"Sir: — It has become my duty to resign the office of 
chief magistrate of the State, and to place in your hands the 
authority and responsibility, which on such an event, 
devolves on you by the provisions of the Constitution. 

"In dissolving the political connexion which has so long, 
and in such a variety of forms, existed between the people 
of Tennessee and myself, no private affliction, however deep 
or incurable, can forbid an expression of the grateful recol- 
lections so eminently due to the kind partiajities of an indul- 
gent public, 

"From my earliest youth, whatever of talent was com- 
mitted to my care, has been honestly cultivated and expended 
for the common good ; and at no period of a life, which has 
certainly been marked by a full portion of interesting events, 
have any views of private interest or private ambition been 
permitted to mingle in the higher duties of public trust. 

"In reviewing the past I can only regret that my capacity 
for being useful was so unequal to the devotion of my heart, 
and it is one of the few consolations of my life, that even 
had I been blessed with ability equal to my zeal, my coun- 
try's generous support in every vicissitude of life has been 
more than equal to them both. 

"That veneration for public opinion by which I have 
measured every act of my official life, has taught me to hold 
no delegated power which would not daily be renewed by 
my constituents, could the choice be daily submitted to a 
sensible expression of their will. 

"And although shielded by a perfect consciousness of 
undiminished claim to the confidence and support of my 
fellow citizens, and delicately circumstanced as I am and 
by my own misfortunes more than the fault or contrivance 



170 1-1 PE, AND TIMES OF 

of any one, overwhelmed by sudden calamities, it is certainly 
due to myself and more respectful to the world, that I retire 
from a position, which, in the public judgment, I might 
seem to occupy by questionable authority. 

"It yields me no small share of comfort, so far as I am 
able of taking comfort from any circumstance, that in 
resigning my executive charge, I am placing it in the hands 
of one whose integrity and worth have been long tried ; who 
understands and will peruse the true interests of the State; 
and who in the hour of success and in the hour of adversity 
has been the consistent and valued friend of the great and 
good man, now enjoying the triumph of his virtues in the 
conscious security of a nation's gratitude. 

"Sam Houston. 

''Gen. William Hall, Speaker of the Senate, Tennessee." 

There is a refined delicacy in this letter, that will be a 
new chapter in the life of Sam Houston to all who have 
misinterpreted his character. 

But there is in addition a sentiment involving a political 
principle, which I believe has not been expressed by any 
other man holding office ; that is : 

"That veneration of public opinion by which I have 
measured every act of my public official life has taught me 
to hold no delegated power which would not be daily 
renewed by my constituents, could the choice be daily sub- 
mitted to a sensible expression of their will." 

After the Battle of the Horse Shoe, Jackson prepared and 
read to the army the following address : 

"You have entitled yourselves to the gratitude of your 
country and your General. The expedition from which you 
have just returned has, by your good conduct, been rendered 
prosperous beyond any example in the history of our war- 
fare; it has redeemed the character of your State, and of 
that description of troops of which the greater part of 

you are. 

"You have within a few days opened your way to the 
Tallapoosa and destroyed a confederacy of the enemy, fero- 



ANDREW JACKSON. 171 

cious by nature, and who have grown insolent from impu- 
nity. Relying on their numbers, the security of their 
situation, and the assurances of their prophets, they derided 
our approach, and already exulted in anticipation of the 
victory they expected to obtain. But they were ignorant 
of the influence and effect of government on the human 
powers, nor knew what brave men, and civilized, could 
effect. By their yells they hoped to frighten us, and with 
their wooden fortifications to oppose us. Stupid mortals ; 
their yells but designated their situation the more certainly, 
while their walls became a snare for their own destruction. 
So will it ever be. when presumption and ignorance con- 
tend against bravery and prudence. 

"The fiends of the Tallapoosa will no longer murder our 
women and children, or disturb the quiet of our borders. 
Their midnight flambeaux will no longer illume their coun- 
cil house, or shine upon the victim of their infernal orgies. 
In their places a new generation will rise, who will know 
their duty better. The weapons of warfare will be exchanged 
for the utensils of husbandry; and the wilderness, which 
now withers in sterility, and mourns the desolation which 
overspreads her, will blossom as the rose, and become the 
nursery of the arts. But before this happy day can arrive 
other chastisements remain to be inflicted. It is, indeed, 
lamentable that the path to peace should lead through blood 
and over the bodies of the slain ; but it is a dispensation of 
Providence, and a wise one, to inflict partial evils that ulti- 
mate good may be produced. 

"Our enemies are not sufliciently humbled — they do not 
sue for peace. A collection of them awaits our approach, 
and remain to be dispersed. Buried in ignorance, and 
seduced by the false pretenses of their prophets, they have 
the weakness to believe they will still be able to make a 
decided stand against us. They must be undeceived, and 
made to atone their obstinacy and their crimes by still fur- 
ther suffering. Those hopes which have so long deluded 
them must be driven from their last refuge. They must 
be made to know their prophets are imposters. and that our 
strength is mighty and will prevail. Then, and not till then, 
may we expect to make with them a peace that shall be 
permanent." 



172 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

Most men would have rested on this great victory, the 
Battle of the Horse Shoe, but his address shows that Jack- 
son considered nothing done till all was done. News had 
been brought in that the scattered Indians were preparing 
to make another stand at the junction of the Coosa and 
Tallapoosa, known as the Indian's Holy Ground, where the 
prophets said that no white man could come and live. And 
sinking his own dead in the river to save the bodies from 
mutilation, and leaving 750 dead Indians on the ground, 
and with a long train of wagons carrying his wounded, he 
the next day after the battle, moved back to Fort Williams ; 
then rapidly collected supplies and moved on the "Holy 
Ground," a march of five days. The rains had made all 
the swamps lakes of water, and the creeks were all over- 
flowing the banks. Reaching the Holy Ground, Jackson 
found as a fact that the war was over. Fourteen chiefs had 
come in to surrender, all asking for peace, and offering 
every assurance of a peaceful purpose. Jackson sent them 
back to Fort Williams, but demanded that they should 
surrender Weatherford, the supposed leader in the Fort 
Mimms massacre. The fact was not then known that 
Weatherford, though a leader in the war movement, did all 
in his power and risked his own life in an effort to prevent 
the horrible massacre at Fort Mimms. 

It may be well to note here that Jackson, by these com- 
plete victories over the most powerful tribe of Indians of 
the continent, practically ended Indian wars; the Indians 
ceased to be a power in war. These great victories thrilled 
the American people, and as soon as the news got to Europe 
the British Commissioners at Ghent came to their senses 
and no longer demanded a large part of our territory, with 
rights on the Mississippi River. 



ANDREW JACKSON. 173 



CHAPTER XIII. 

JACKSON REACHES THE HOLY GROUND AN EXCITING 

SCENE WITH WEATHERFORD, THE INDIAN CHIEF A 

SKETCH OF DAVY CROCKETT WITH FACTS ABOUT THE 
AWFUL MASSACRE AT THE ALAMO. 

THE Creek War having been ended by the Battle of 
the Horse Shoe — practically ended — as shown in 
a former chapter, the chiefs a few days after coming 
in and giving up at the Holy Ground, and, being required 
to bring in Weatherford, that brave Indian out in the woods 
did not wait to be brought in, but from Eaton's "Life of 
Jackson" and Pickett's ''History of Alabama," I gather the 
following facts about Weatherford : 

Weatherford spared his brother chiefs the hazard of 
attempting his capture. His well-known surrender was one 
of the most striking incidents of the War of 1812. Indeed, 
I know not where, in ancient legend or modern history, in 
epic poem or tragic drama, to find a scene more worthy to 
be called sublime than that which now occurred between this 
great chief and the conqueror of his tribe. And though it 
reads more like a scene in one of our Indian plays than the 
record of a fact, it has the advantage of being perfectly well 
attested. Weatherford's father was one of the class called 
in the olden time Indian-country men — that is, white inhab- 
itants of the Indian country. He was a roving trader 
among the Creeks ; married an Indian woman of the fierce 
Seminole tribe; accumulated property; possessed at length 
a plantation and negroes ; became noted as a breeder of fine 
horses, and won prizes on the Alabama turf. His son 
William inherited his father's property, his father's love of 



174 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

horses, his father's thrift and strength of character, but he 
drew from his Seminole mother something of the fierceness 
and taciturn grandeur of demeanor which belonged to the 
chiefs of her warlike tribe. He identified himself at all 
times with the Indians ; his tastes and pursuits were Indian ; 
he gloried in being an Indian chief. He hunted bear with 
the passion and skill of Tecumseh and Davy Crockett. The 
white men who were in later years his neighbors and asso- 
ciates, represent him to have been a man of honor and 
humanity. They looked upon him as a patriot who had 
done what he could to preserve the independent sovereignty 
of his tribe, and whose hands were not stained by blood 
dishonorably shed. 

That bold march across the wilderness brought the con- 
queror of the Creeks to the Holy Ground itself, and at his 
approach the force under Weatherford melted away, leaving 
him alone in the forest with a multitude of women and chil- 
dren, whom the war had made widows and orphans, and 
who were perishing for want of food. To this sad extrem- 
ity had Weatherford brought the tribe. Then it was that 
he gave that shining example of humanity and heroism that 
ought to immortalize his name. He might have fled with 
others of the war party to Florida, where welcome and pro- 
tection awaited him. He chose to remain and to attempt by 
the sacrifice of his own life to save from imminent starvation 
the women and children whose natural protectors he had led 
or urged to their death. 

Mounting his gray steed, he directed his course to Jack- 
son's camp, in the peninsula formed by the confluence of the 
Coosa and the Tallapoosa. The General had planted his 
• colors upon the site of the old French Fort Toulose, erected „ v^^^ 

/ ^ by Governor Bienville a hundred years before. The French 
trenches were cleared of the accumulated rubbish of a cen- 
tury, a stockade was erected in the American manner, and 
the place named Fort Jackson. The two rivers approach 



ANDREW JACKSON. I75 

at that point to within 600 yards of each other, and then, 
diverging, unite four miles below. 

The hunting instinct must have been strong indeed in 
Weatherford, for, when he was only a few miles from Fort 
Jackson, a fine deer crossing his path and stopping within 
shooting distance, he could not resist the temptation, but 
shot the deer and placed it on his horse behind his saddle. 
Reloading his rifle with two balls, for the purpose, as he 
afterwards said, of shooting the "Big Warrior," who, on 
seeing Weatherford, cried out in an insulting tone, "Ah! 
Bill Weatherford, have we got you at last?" 

With a glance of fire at the insulter, Weatherford replied, 
"You traitor ! If you give me any insolence I will blow a 
ball through your cowardly heart !" 

General Jackson now came running out of the tent, accom- 
panied by Colonel Hawkins, the agent of the Creeks. 

"How dare you," exclaimed the General, in a furious 
manner, "ride up to my tent after having murdered the 
women and children at Fort Mimms ?" 

Weatherford replied, according to his own recollection of 
it, as follows : 

"General Jackson, I am not afraid of you. I fear no 
man, for I am a Creek warrior. I have nothing to request 
in behalf of myself. You can kill me if you desire. But I 
come to ask you to send for the women and children of the 
war party, who are now starving in the woods. Their fields 
and cribs have been destroyed by your people, who have 
driven them to the woods without an ear of corn. I hope 
that you will send out parties who will conduct them safely 
here, in order that they may be fed. I exerted myself in 
vain to prevent the massacre of the women and children at 
Fort Mimms. I am now done fighting. The Red Sticks 
are nearly all killed. If I could^ fight you any longer, I 
would most heartily do so. Send for the women and chil- 
dren. They never did you any harm. But kill me, if the 
white people want it done." 



176 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

When he ceased speaking a great crowd of officers and 
soldiers had gathered around the tent. Accustomed now 
for many months to associate the name of Weatherford with 
the oft-told horrors of the massacre, and imperfectly com- 
prehending what was going forward, the troops cast upon 
the chief glances of hatred and aversion. Many of them 
cried out : 

"Kill him!" "Kill him!" "Kill him!" 

"Silence!" exclaimed Jackson, and the clamor was 
hushed. "Any man," added the General, with great energy, 
"who would kill as brave a man as this would rob the dead." 

He then invited Weatherford to alight and enter his tent, 
which the chief did, bringing in with him the deer he had 
killed on the way, and presenting it to the General. Jackson 
accepted the gift, invited Weatherford to drink a glass of 
brandy, and entered into a frank and friendly conversation 
with him. The remainder of the interview rests upon the 
authority of Major Eaton, who, Mr. Pickett thinks, based 
this portion of his narrative "entirely upon camp gossip." 
But I am sure Eaton must have heard the story many times 
from Jackson himself, and, though he may have added to 
the tale a slight presidential campaign flavor, there is no 
good reason to doubt its general correctness. 

"The terms upon which your nation can be saved," said 
the General, "have been already disclosed ; in that way, and 
none other, can you obatin safety. If you wish to continue 
the war," Jackson added, "you are at liberty to depart 
unharmed; but if you desire peace, you may remain, and 
you shall be protected." 

Weatherford replied that he desired peace in order that 
his nation might be relieved of their sufferings, and the 
women and children saved. "There was a time," he said, 
"when I had a choice and could have answered you ; I have 
none now ; even hope has ended. Once I could animate my 
warriors to battle, but I cannot animate the dead. My war- 



ANDREW JACKSON. 177 

riors can no longer hear my voice; their homes are at Talla- 
dega, Tallushatche, Emuckfau, and Tohopeka. I have not 
surrendered myself thoughtlessly. Whilst there were 
chances of success, I have never left my post, nor supplicated 
peace. But my people are gone, and I now ask it for the 
nation and myself. On the miseries and misfortunes 
brought upon my country I look back with deepest sorrow, 
and wish to avert still greater calamities. If I had been left 
to contend with the Georgia army, I would have raised my 
corn on one bank of the river and fought them on the other ; 
but your people have destroyed my nation. You are a brave 
man; I rely upon your generosity. You will exact no 
terms of a conquered people but such as they should accede 
to; whatever they may be, it would now be madness and 
folly to oppose. If they are opposed, you shall find me 
among the sternest enforcers of obedience. Those who 
would still hold out can be influenced only by a mean spirit 
of revenge; and to this they must not, and shall not, sacrifice 
the last remnant of their country. You have told our nation 
where we might go and be safe. This is a good talk, and 
they ought to listen to it. They shall listen to it." 

The interview concluded. For a short time Weather- 
ford remained at Fort Jackson, and then retired to his plan- 
tation upon Little Bear. 

When the war was over, Weatherford again became a 
planter and lived many years with white men and red upon 
a good farm, "well supplied with negroes," in Monroe 
County, Alabama. "He maintained," adds the historian of 
that State, "an excellent character and was much respected 
by the American residents for his bravery, honor, and 
strong native good sense. He died in 1826, from the fa- 
tigue produced by a "desperate bear hunt." 

Intending, in the course of work I am now doing, not 
only to put General Jackson before the world in his true 

character as the greatest captain of his time, and the boldest 

12 



178 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

and most far-seeing statesman this country has produced, 
but, as far as time and space will allow, to bring before the 
present generation such other Tennesseans whose patriotic 
services in the field or in council, entitle them to a place in 
the history of my beloved State, I shall stop here in the gen- 
eral work and introduce a man whom I may appropriately 
call the "Wizard of the Woods." 

No life of Jackson and no sketch of Sam Houston can 
be made satisfactory by leaving out Davy Crockett, a bear- 
hunter by trade, a daring Indian fighter when soldiers were 
needed, a member of Congress for diversion, and as true a 
patriot as was ever shot to death by cowards who killed pris- 
oners. Crockett was born in Washington County, Tennes- 
see ; ran away from home when a boy and settled in Lincoln 
County ; then moved to Franklin County, and at Winchester 
joined a company for the Creek War, having probably been 
in the Natchez campaign as a boy. He went out with the 
first campaign, but re-enlisted and went out with the second. 
He was under Coffee and made a splendid soldier. After 
the war he moved to Lawrence County ; then he was one of 
the first settlers in West Tennessee, and was twice elected 
to Congress, and once defeated by Adam Huntsman. 

His biographers have sought unwittingly, as I think, 
to profit by making him a much more illiterate man than he 
was. He made several sound, strong speeches in Congress 
on practical subjects, which were reported at the time. He 
was undoubtedly the Tennessee Daniel Boone, and always 
moved when he could not cut trees for firewood in the yard. 
His diversion, when not hunting, was getting up shooting 
matches and winning beef. For a good many years his 
most dangerous competitor for shooting matches was 
John A. Murrel. 

Col. Robert L Chester told me that he had stayed 
all night with him when he was a member of Congress, 



ANDREW JACKSON. 179 

and that he Hved in a httle cabin with a dirt floor, except 
some bear skins spread down, on which the children slept 

When the people of Texas began to talk about inde- 
pendence, setting up their own government, and Mexico 
commenced raising troops to suppress the rebellion, Crock- 
ett left Tennessee, as Houston left the Indian Nation, and 
went to aid in the struggle. He was soon, with others, 
many of them Tennesseans, in the thickest of the fight. 
They were at the town of Bexar — about 130 men. Some 
others came in after, making perhaps 185 men, and finding 
that they were being surrounded by Santa Anna's army, 
they moved into the old Spanish fortress of Alamo. Every 
man of them perished, but, fortunately, for the history of 
that dreadful episode of war, Davy Crockett kept a diary, 
which was found. This diary shows that on the 22d of 
February, 1836, the Mexicans, about 1,600 strong, with 
their President, Santa Anna, at their head, aided by Gen- 
erals Almonte, Cos, Sesma, and Castrillon, were within two 
leagues of Bexar. Some of the scouts came in and brought 
reports that Santa Anna had been endeavoring to excite 
the Indians to hostilities against the Texans, but so far 
without effect. February 23d shows that: 

"Early this morning the enemy came in sight, marching 
in regular order, and displaying their strength to the great- 
est advantage in order to strike us with terror. But that 
was no go ; they'll find that they will have to do with men 
who will never lay down their arms as long as they can 
stand on their legs. We held a short council of war, and, 
finding that we would be completely surrounded and over- 
whelmed by numbers if we remained in town, we concluded 
to withdraw to the fortress of Alamo and defend it to the 
last extremity. As soon as our little band, about 150 in 
number, had entered and put the fortress in the best possible 
manner, we set about raising our flag on the battlements; 
on which occasion there was no one more anxious than my 



180 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

young friend, the bee-hunter. He had been all along 
sprightly, cheerful and spirited, but now, notwithstanding 
the control that he usually maintained over himself, it was 
with difficulty that he kept his enthusiasm within bounds. 
As soon as we commenced raising the flag he burst forth, 
in a clear, full tone of voice, that made the blood tingle in 
the veins of all who heard him : 

"Up with your banner, Freedom, 
Thy champions cling to thee ; 
They'll follow where you'll lead 'em. 
To death or victory — 

Up with your banner. Freedom. 

"Tyrants and slaves are rushing 
To tread thee in the dust; 
Their blood will soon be gushing. 
And stain our knives with rust — 
But not thy banner. Freedom. 

"While stars and stripes are flying, 
Our blood we'll freely shed ; 
No groan will 'scape the dying, 
Seeing thee o'er his head — 

Up with your banner. Freedom." 

"This song was followed by three cheers from all within 
the fortress, and the drums and trumpets commenced play- 
ing. The enemy marched into Bexar and took possession 
of the town, a blood-red flag flying at their head, to indi- 
cate that we need not expect quarter if we should fall into 
their clutches. In the afternoon a messenger was sent to 
Colonel Travis, demanding an unconditional and absolute 
surrender of the garrison, threatening to put every man to 
the sword in case of refusal. The only answer he received 
was a cannon shot ; so the messenger left us with a flea in 
his ear, and the Mexicans commenced firing grenades at 
us, but without doing any mischief. At night Colonel 



ANDREW JACKSON. 181 

Travis sent an express to Colonel Fanning, at Goliad, about 
three or four days march from this place, to let him know 
that we were besieged." 

February 25th shows that, "The firing commenced early 
this morning, but the Mexicans are poor soldiers, for we 
haven't lost a single man and our outworks have sustained 
no injury. Our sharpshooters have brought down a con- 
siderable number of stragglers at a long shot." 

February 26th shows that, "Colonel Bowie has been 
taken sick from overexertion and exposure. He did not 
leave his bed today until twelve o'clock. He is worth a 
dozen common men in a situation like ours. The bee-hunter 
keeps the whole garrison in good heart with his songs." 

February 27th shows that, "The cannonading began early 
this morning and ten bombs were thrown into the fort, but 
fortunately exploded without doing any mischief. So 
far it has been a sort of tempest within a teapot, not unlike 
a pitched battle in a hall of Congress, where the parties 
array their forces, make dreadful demonstrations on both 
sides, then fire away with loud-sounding speeches, which 
contain about as much as a howitzer charged with a blank 
cartridge." 

February 28th shows that, "Last night our hunters 
brought in some corn, and had a brush with scouts from the 
enemy beyond the gunshot of the fort. They put the scouts 
to flight and got within without injury. They bring ac- 
count that the settlers are flying in all quarters in dismay, 
leaving their possessions to the ruthless invader, who is 
literally engaged in a war of extermination more brutal 
than the untutored savage of the desert could be guilty of. 
Slaughter is indiscriminate, sparing neither sex, age, nor 
condition." 

February 29th shows that, "The enemy had planted a 
piece of ordnance within gunshot of the fort during the 



182 LIFE AND TIMES OF 



•ti! .■^'•■' 



night, and the first thing in the morning they commenced 
a brisk cannonade, point blank against the spot where I 
was snoring. I turned out pretty smart and mounted the 
rampart. The gun was charged again, a fellow stepped 
forth to touch her off, but before he could apply the match 
I let him have it, and he keeled over. A second stepped up^ 
snatched the match from the hand of the dying man, but 
Thimblerig, who had followed me, handing me his rifle, 
and the next instant the Mexican was stretched on the earth 
beside the first. A third came up to the cannon, my com- 
panion handed me another gun, and I fixed him off in like 
manner. A fourth, then a fifth, seized the match, who both 
met with the same fate, and then the whole party gave it 
up as a bad job, and hurried off to camp, leaving the cannon 
ready charged where they had planted it. I came down, 
took my bitters, and went to breakfast." 

March ist shows that, "The enemy's forces have been 
increasing in numbers daily, notwithstanding they have al- 
ready lost about three hundred men in the several assaults 
they have made upon us." 

March the 2d shows that, "This day the delegates meet 
in general convention at the town of Washington to frame 
our declaration of independence. That the sacred instru- 
ment may never be trampled on by the children of those who 
have freely shed their blood to establish it, is the sincere 
wish of Davy Crockett. Universal independence is an al- 
mighty idea, far too extensive for some brains to compre- 
hend. It is a beautiful seed that germinates rapidly, and 
brings forth a large and vigorous tree, but, like the deadly 
upas, we sometimes find that smaller plants wither and die 

in its shade." 

March 3d shows that, "We have given over all hopes of 
receiving assistance from Goliad or Refugio. Colonel 
Travis harangued the garrison, and concluded by exhort- 



ANDREW JACKSON. 183 

ing them, in case the enemy should carry the fort, to fight 
to the last gasp, and render their victory even more serious 
to them than to us. This was followed by three cheers." 

March 4th shows that, "Shells have been falling into 
the fort like hail during the day, but without effect." 

March 5th shows that, 'Top, pop, pop, boom, boom, 
boom, throughout the day. No time for memorandums 
now. Go ahead. Liberty and independence forever." 

These are the last words that immortal Tennessee hero 
ever wrote. 

This reference to Davy Crockett may seem a digression, 
but in writing the life of General Jackson I am interested 
in getting out, and giving a true history of the people and 
their character — and especially as soldiers — of the men of 
the Southwest. 

I know of nothing in song or story that excels in cour- 
age and coolness, in the hour of death, this report made 
by Davy Crockett of himself and his men as they surren- 
dered themselves to an infuriated army, to be put to death 
under conditions then existing. 



184 LIFE AND TIMES OF 



CHAPTER XIV. 

ENDING OF THE CREEK CAMPAIGN JACKSON MADE A 

MAJOR GENERAL IN THE UNITED STATES ARMY THE 

RESULTS OF THIS CAMPAIGN ALABAMA HISTORIAN ON 

THE FIGHTING QUALITY OF THE INDIANS. 

IT will be remembered that Crockett's diary closed with 
the 5th of March — when the final assault was made 
by Santa Anna on the fortress. From an old woman, a 
colored servant, of Colonel Travis, the only inmate of the 
Alamo that survived, and from prisoners captured by Hous- 
ton a few days after, a careful and extended sketch of all 
that took place at the Alamo, and in the murder of Fanning 
and his men, with a spirited account of Houston's great 
victory over Santa Anna in the battle of San Jacinto, was 
made. This is of special interest, because of the graphic 
picture and of the part two of General Jackson's disciples 
took in it, and especially because one man, trained under 
Jackson, knew how, as a soldier, to die, and another, trained 
under him, knew how to win a victory; but it is American 
history, and not appropriate in the life of Jackson. 

Sevier, Campbell and Shelby, after getting to the top of 
King's Mountain, whipped the British in less than an hour, 
killing and capturing an army twice the size of their own. 
Jackson, at New Orleans, had the British retreating in 
twenty-five minutes, with 1,500 dead on the field; and Sam 
Houston, at San Jacinto, with 750 men, fighting 1,500 
Mexicans, killed and captured in less than an hour the entire 
army of Santa Anna. Who will say that the Tennesseans 
in the olden times were not soldiers? 

There is nothing in American history, perhaps, more 
interesting than the details of what took place after the 



ANDREW JACKSON. 185 

terrible massacre at the Alamo. There is certainly nothing 
connected with our wars more dreadful in the details than 
what followed the Alamo — the murder of Fanning and his 
men and the terrible ferocity of the Mexicans, following 
which comes what more than anything else illustrates the 
character of General Sam Houston in raising an army, 
destroying Santa Anna's army, and taking Santa Anna a 
prisoner. 

In the original preparation of this work I had embraced 
all the facts, simply because Sam Houston and Davy 
Crockett had been soldiers under General Jackson, and had 
their training under him ; but it is, perhaps, foreign to this 
work, while it is truly a part of American history, there- 
fore it is now left out. 

Believing that General Jackson's campaign against the 
Creek Indians has had no fair showing in American his- 
tory, I am not willing to close this part of the work by a 
mere recital of -its events. Two causes have conspired to 
obscure this epoch in General Jackson's life. One was, 
the great victory over the British, a few months after the 
Creek campaign closed, so marked that period in American 
history and brought about the head of the great soldier 
such a halo of glory, that all behind was for the time for- 
gotten, or overshadowed. The other was, that this cam- 
paign, the complete destruction of this powerful ally of the 
British, just at the time when the Government stood so 
much in need of comfort; that in its joyous appreciation of 
what Jackson had done, and under a pressure from the com- 
mon people, it made him a Major General in the United 
States Army. From this uplift General Jackson never re- 
covered. To take up a backwoods, uneducated (as they 
said) militia officer, and make him a Major General in the 
regular army over hundreds of educated, rightful heirs, 
because he had killed a few Indians, was just too much for 
the small men in the army and their kin. They com- 



186 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

menced at once to belittle the Creek campaign. All the 
truly great soldiers in the regular army have nobly defended 
the name and fame of the great Tennessean, remembering 
that the great King makes great soldiers, and that while 
sheep skins are innocent, they don't make great men. The 
great commander discovers, by some intelligently executed, 
daring deed, the metal of a subordinate, and lifts him out of 
the ranks. Napoleon found great marshals down in the 
ranks. With the class of military men who thought 
dead Indians were not equal to sheepskins, they never even 
could see that General Jackson was entitled to much credit 
for his victory at New Orleans over an army that had fol- 
lowed Wellington, and then cleaned up everything on the 
Canadian line. 

The effect of this campaign not only gave spirit to the 
American army and great comfort to the Government that 
had been driven from the Capitol, but it brought the British 
Commissioners at Ghent to their senses, and made possible 
a treaty of peace. And, although the American Commis- 
sioners had to bear the mortification of making a treaty 
without securing the main thing they were fighting about — 
the denial of the right to search American ships. General 
Jackson, by the battle of New Orleans, did put it in the 
treaty, and in a more enduring form than if it had been 
written. England in all her wars with other nations has 
never since the fatal 8th of January, 1815, claimed the right 
to search one of our ships found on the high seas. 

The war with England would not have closed when it 
did, by the treaty of Ghent, but for Jackson's great vic- 
tories over this powerful tribe. Mr. Gallatin, as well as our 
other commissioners in Europe, had made the discovery 
that the war with Napoleon being ended by his capitulation, 
and their army being victorious on the Canada line in the 
war with us, the entire military power was to be thrown 
against the South ; and Mr. Gallatin so informed the Presi- 



ANDREW JACKSON. 187 

dent. Their victories in the North and their abihty to 
mobiHze their entire mihtary force against the South, with 
the Spaniards in Florida their friends and Pensacola as a 
base of suppHes, and the powerful Creek Nation of Indians 
occupying all of the Mississippi Territory, an ally that had 
agreed to kill all the Americans — men, women, and chil- 
dren — as they came to them. Great Britain felt sure of at 
least an ending of the war in such a way that it would hum- 
ble the colonies that had broken the bond and set up for 
themselves. 

The character of the tribe of Indians which had made an 
alliance with the British, and which General Jackson de- 
prived the British of as an ally, is fully described by Mr. 
Pickett (who had long lived with the Creeks), the Alabama 
historian, as follows : 

"They defeated the Americans," he says, "at Burnt Corn, 
and compelled them to make a precipitate retreat. They 
reduced Fort Mimms, after a fight of five hours, and ex- 
terminated its numerous inmates. They encountered the 
large force under Coffee, at Talleseehatchie, and fought 
until not one warrior was left, disdaining to beg for quarter. 
They opposed Jackson at Talledega, and, although sur- 
rounded by his army, poured out their fire and fled not till 
the ground was almost covered with their dead. They met 
Floyd at Autosse, and fought him a few hours after the 
battle when he was leading his army over Heydon's hill. 
Against the well trained army of Claiborne they fought at 
Holy Ground with the fury of tigers, and then made good 
their retreat across the Alabama. At Emuckfau three times 
did they charge upon Jackson, and when he retreated 
towards the Coosa they sprang upon him, while crossing 
the creek at Enoctochopoc, with the courage and impetu- 
osity of lions. Two days afterwards a party near Weather- 
ford rushed upon the unsuspecting Georgians at Calabee, 
threw the army into dismay and confusion, and stood their 



188 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

ground in a severe struggle, until the superior force of 
General Floyd forced them to fly at daylight. Sixty days 
after this, Jackson surrounded them at the Horse Shoe, 
and after a sanguinary contest totally exterminated them, 
while not one of them begged for quarter. At length, 
wounded, starved and beaten, hundreds fled to the swamps 
of Florida; others went to Pensacola, and, rallying under 
Colonel Nichol, attacked Fort Bowyer." 

"Thus," adds the same author, "were the brave Creeks 
opposed by the combined armies of Georgia, Tennessee and 
the Mississippi Territory, together with the Federal forces 
of other States, besides numerous bands of bloody Choc- 
taws and Chickasaws. Fresh volunteers and militia, from 
month to month, were brought against them, while no one 
came to their assistance save a few English officers, who led 
them to undertake enterprises beyond their ability to accom- 
plish. And how long did they contend against the powerful 
forces allied against them? From the 27th of July, 1813, 
to the last of December, 1814. In every engagement with 
the Americans the forces of the Creeks were greatly 
inferior in number, except at Burnt Cork and Fort Mimms." 

"Brave nations of Alabama!" exclaims the generous his- 
torian, "to defend that soil where the Great Spirit gave 
you birth; you sacrificed your peaceful savage pursuit. 
You fought the invaders until more than half your war- 
riors were slain. The remnant of your warlike tribe yet 
live on the distant Arkansas. You have been forced to 
quit one of the finest regions upon the earth, which is now 
occupied by Americans. Will they, in some dark hour, 
when Alabama is invaded, defend this soil as bravely and 
as enduringly as you have done ? Posterity may be able to 
reply." 

The closing words of the Alabama historian are truly 
pathetic, and will in this resurrection of historic incidents, 
and especially the tribute paid these savages fighting for a 



ANDREW JACKSON. 189 

country they thought was their own, find a generous and 
responsive impulse to the noble words of the historian by 
thousands who believe in the right of any people to defend 
their homes. 

The facts, however, in this case leave no room for de- 
bate. The treatment of the Creeks by our Government 
from its inception up to the time of the Jackson campaign, 
and the manner in which the war was brought on and the 
purpose of it, is an essential part of American history, and 
will entirely relieve the minds of the sympathetic friends of 
the Indians. 

\Vhen this Jackson-Creek war broke out, the Government 
had been in existence twenty-six years (the Creeks were 
known to be a powerful tribe), by far the strongest of all 
the Southern tribes — and warlike. So, one of the first 
things General Washington did when he became President 
was to appoint and send among them on a friendly mis- 
sion a Mr. Hawkins, with instructions to cultivate friendlv 
relations. Hawkins was a wise and good man, and came to 
be much beloved by the Indians ; he was truly a great friend, 
and was so recognized. 

He was in a sense the head of the nation, and taught the 
Indians to always speak of General Washington as their 
"Great Father." During this long period of about twenty- 
six years there had been nothing but friendly relations, and 
the Indians were truly the wards of the nation. So satis- 
factory were these relations, that all subsequent Presidents 
down to this outbreak kept Mr. Hawkins without any dis- 
cussion about changing him. 

Colonel Nichol, who was in command at Pensacola, as 
well as the "Subaltern" correspondent of the British army 
in the war of 1812, admits, and publishes the facts of the 
alliance between the British Government and the Creek 
Nation, for the latter to aid the former in the war. 

Colonel Hawkins was at the seat of government on the 



190 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

Alabama River, holding a council with the chiefs about 
general matters connected with affairs of the nation, when 
Tecumseh came there, and, by a series of "talks," incited the 
tribe to go to war — the first sign of which was the horrible, 
the awful murder of about 400 whites, mostly women and 
children, at Fort Mimms. 

This was a declaration of war that brought General Jack- 
son out of bed with a broken arm. There was no question, 
"Who fired the first gun?" 



ANDREW JACKSON. 191 



CHAPTER XV. 

PERSISTENT REFUSAL OF GENERAL JACKSON TO ACCEPT 
CIVIL HONORS; HIS GENIUS PRE-EMINENTLY MILITARY 

TENNESSEANS RECOGNIZE THIS, BUT THE UNITED 

STATES GOVERNMENT REMAINS LONG UNCONVINCED 

THE CREEK CAMPAIGN AND THE BEGINNING OF THE 
WAR OF 1 81 2 FINALLY RESULT IN REMOVING PREJUDICE 
AT WASHINGTON, AND JACKSON IS MADE MAJOR GEN- 
ERAL IN THE REGULAR ARMY, 

THE Creek War being ended, Major General Pinck- 
ney, of the United States Army, banquetted Gen- 
eral Jackson at the Holy Ground, and took com- 
mand of the few regulars in the South, and on the 21st of 
April, 1 814, issued the order for General Jackson and his 
Tennesseans to return home. They were to be discharged 
at Fayetteville, from whence they had moved eight months 
before. 

General Pinckney, an old Revolutionary soldier, had 
watched Jackson's career in both campaigns, and in most 
flattering terms reported to the Government at Washing- 
ton his victories in the Creek campaign, and gave him a 
parting blessing rarely witnessed in army life. The army, 
with such complimentary words for brave service as only 
General Jackson knew how to use, was discharged on. 
reaching the State, and General Jackson, many miles be- 
fore he reached Nashville, was met by many hundreds of 
people who had watched his campaign with a pride that 
has come down to their grand and great grandchildren. 
He was met and welcomed as the conquering hero. He 
had inflicted just punishment on the great Creek Nation 



192 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

for the most barbarous massacre of helpless people. He 
was taken to the court-house, when, on behalf of the com- 
mittee, Felix Grundy delivered an address of welcome, to 
which Jackson replied. General Jackson's speech appears 
in the Nashville Whig, of May i6, 1814. It is as follows: 

"Gentlemen : — The favorable sentiments you have been 
pleased to express, by authority of your fellow-citizens, of 
the brave officers and soldiers who composed my army in 
the late expedition against the Creek Indians, are received 
with the liveliest sensibility. 

"We had indeed borne with many outrages from that 
barbarous and infatuated nation before the massacre at 
Fort Mimms raised our energies to avenge the wrongs we 
had sustained. I participated in the common feeling, and 
my duty to my country impelled me to take the field. I 
endeavored to discharge that duty faithfully; my best ex- 
ertions were used, my best judgment exercised. 

"In the prosecution of such a war difficulties and priva- 
tions were to be expected. To meet and sustain these 
became the duty of every officer and soldier; and for the 
faithful performance of this duty they are amply rewarded 
in the expression of their country's approbation. 

"The success which attended our exertions has indeed 
been very great. We have laid the foundation of a lasting 
peace to those frontiers which had been so long and so 
often infested by the savages we have conquered. We have 
added a country to ours which, by connecting the settle- 
ments of Georgia with those of the Mississippi Territory, 
and both of them with our own, will become a secure barrier 
against foreign invasion, or the operation of foreign influ- 
ence over our red neighbors in the South, and we have 
furnished the means of not only defraying the expenses 
of the war against the Creeks, but of that which is carried 
on against their ally. Great Britain. 

"How ardently, therefore, is it to be wished that the 
Government may take the earliest opportunity and advise 
the most effectual means of populating that section of the 
Union. 

"In acquiring these advantages to our country it is true 
we have lost some valuable citizens, some brave soldiers. 



ANDREW JACKSON. 193 

But these are misfortunes inseparable from a state of war; 
and while I mingle my regret with yours for the lost, I 
have this consolation, in common with yourselves, that 
the sons of Tennessee who fell contending for their rights 
have approved themselves worthy the American name — 
worthy descendants of their sires of the revolution." 

This is a model speech. In its acceptance of the senti- 
ments expressed for the soldiers under him it is singularly 
modest; in what was accomplished it is suggestive and not 
free in the use of the pronoun "I." If the many literary 
critics who have taxed their scant store-houses for words 
to show the great soldier's inaptness with pen and tongue, 
had possessed the great man's modesty, their literary pro- 
ductions would have been less offensive. 

Shortly after Jackson's great victory in the Battle of the 
Horse Shoe, a brigadier generalship fell vacant in the regu- 
lar army, and the President intimated a purpose to appoint 
Jackson. This was opposed by officers in the regular 
army, but about the time Jackson got back to Tennessee the 
commission of brigadier general in the regular army was 
tendered him. While General Jackson was considering the 
question of accepting it, the Legisalture of the Territory of 
Mississippi voted him a sword. About the sam time there 
came a vacancy, or chance for a new Major General in the 
United States Army, and this was tendered General Jack- 
son, which he gladly accepted. 

General Jacksons' rise, accessions to positions where he 
could display his military genius in the interest of his 
country, makes a record without a counterpart in the his- 
tory of this or any other country. The reader may call it 
luck, fate, or providence, as he chooses, but there is nothing 
like it. 

Civil office was bestowed on General Jackson, commenc- 
ing with his entrance into the State, and continued in a 
manner that is unaccountable — made district attorney in 

IS 



194 I-iPE AND TIMES OF 

the Territory when a mere boy; than a delegate to the con- 
vention which formed the State Government; then sent to 
the Lower House of Congress; twice in the United States 
Senate; then Judge of the Supreme Court of the State, 
nearly all of which offices he resigned, showing that he had 
no taste or desire for civil office, and all manifestly in the 
belief and with an undying faith that his career in life was 
that of a soldier. To look for a moment at his military 
career in two aspects, getting the places to show his genius 
and then the genius he developed, and it is enough to make 
an infidel not only a believer in a great King that rules, but 
in the goodness of the old blue stocking doctrine of pre- 
destination, tempered with the mercy and wisdom of Him 
who makes destiny. Jackson had been in the State but a 
few years, was quite a young man when he became a can- 
didate for major general for the whole State, a most im- 
portant office, and was elected by one majority, the casting 
vote of the Governor, and over John Sevier, who was not 
only a great soldier, but a man beloved by the people, and 
who had stood guard over the women and children from the 
first settlement on the Wautauga and Nolachucky, and 
who was such an idol among the people that they made him 
the first Governor and kept him in that office for twelve 
years, and then sent him to Congress. This one vote put 
Jackson in a position where he was enabled to take another 
step when the War of 1812 came, and when he made the 
celebrated Natchez campaign. 

Mr. Benton's speech in the Senate, as shown in a former 
chapter, details with great minuteness the efforts of Gen- 
eral Jackson and his friends to get him a commission in the 
army when the War of 181 2 came. Jackson believed he 
had military genius; all who knew him intimately, as Col. 
Benton did, believed he had military genius. He had been 
major general of the militia in Tennessee for more than 
ten years, and had thoroughly impressed the people of the 



ANDREW JACKSON. 195 

State that by nature he had the quahties of a soldier. 
In fact, his success over such a born soldier and great popu- 
lar leader in gatting the office of major general, as Colonel 
John Sevier, the hero of King's Mountain, proved that in 
his bearing and intercourse with men, without even the 
insignia of war, there was in him a martial spirit, a spark 
capable of setting the whole State on fire. Hence, in his 
desire to serve his country when the war came he had 
strong and powerful backing from his own State. 

But the Government at Washington was not impressed. 
Aaron Burr pronounced him a great military genius ; Burr 
had served with him in the Senate and had kept up with 
his career. This indorsement of Burr did him no good; 
in fact, Jackson had been one of the many thousands (and, 
of course, was spoken) who believed Burr's scheme did not 
contemplate treason to his own Government. Then, again, 
the Government at Washington could not understand what 
manner of man he was. A man that ran a big store, over- 
looked a big farm, practiced law, put on his regimentals 
when muster day came round, fought duels, ran horses, 
was ambitious, but didn't want a place in the United States 
Senate, nor in the National House of Representatives, and 
resigned both, and then resigned the office of Judge of the 
Supreme Court of his State, was to the silk-stocking, knee- 
breeches, powder-haired gentlemen at Washington an 
enigma— and he might hurt somebody if he got an army. 
They did not believe much in the aphorism, "Must be good 
for something; tried everything else; therefore give him an 
army." 

But the people of Tennessee were wiser than the Gov- 
ernment. They believed he was a born commander of 
men, one of the heroes that God makes when destiny awaits 
a nation. And as misfortunes came to us on the Northern 
frontier, as our armies were driven from place to place on 
the Canada line, the people of Tennessee, through their 



196 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

leading men from every part of the State, petitioned to have 
General Jackson with his Tennessee militia put into the 
fight, but the Government was afraid. 

First and early in the war there was a brigadier's place 
to be given to the West. For this appointment his name 
was presented by Tennessee and pressed, but another suited 
the Government better. 

Second, another brigadier was allotted to the West, and 
Jackson was again presented by Tennessee and pressed, but 
he did not suit the Government. 

Then it was given out that six generals would be ap- 
pointed from all parts of the country, and Jackson's Ten- 
nessee friends went to work earnestly, fully believing that 
Jackson would be one. But, as Col. Benton says, he was 
appointed to go back to his farm. The door to military 
position, so far as the Government was concerned, was 
barred against him. This led to great disappointment in 
Tennessee, and some feeling of injustice. 

But it was then ordered that 50,000 volunteers would be 
accepted. This was Jackson's opportunity. Through the 
Governor he tendered 3,500 men, and they were of course 
accepted, and Jackson became a soldier of 181 2. 

At the time General Jackson received his commission of 
major general, and was ordered to take command of the 
Southern forces, there were conditions that would have 
appalled any other man. From the day General Jackson 
broke away from his surgeons, sixteen days after his fight 
with the Bentons, he had never seen one well day. One of 
the wounds was a source of constant pain until twenty 
years afterwards, when the bullet was cut out at Washing- 
ton when he was President, with Col. Tom Benton there to 
see it well done, and the happiest man in the city when the 
great sufferer was relieved; and the old General, with his 
marked politeness, returned to him his property, the bullet 
which he had carried about with him for a little over 



ANDREW JACKSON. 197 

twenty years. The wounds, the exposure through a hard 
winter in the wilderness, saving the frontiers from the 
tomahawk, and fighting the Indians when he could get to 
them, sleeping but little and half of the time with nothing 
to eat, had left him with the appearance of a feeble, broken- 
down man. The whole time his broken arm had been in 
a sling. Pains from the wounds and poor food had finally 
brought what seemed to be an incurable case of chronic 
dysentery. 

At the time the Government gave him his commission as 
Major General and ordered him South, it was painfully 
aware that the British army had conducted a most success- 
ful campaign in the North; that it had literally conquered 
and captured our armies on the frontier, and that a large 
part of the victorious army, the army to which Hull had 
surrendered, and that had massacred our troops at French 
Town, were being liberated for the great campaign in the 
South ; and it was also known, from the letters of Mr. Gal- . j]> 
latin, Mr. Clay, and Mr. Adams, who were in urope trying .^^ 
to make peace, that a new and powerful army was being 
raised in England for overrunning the South and closing 
up a war with the United States with such a credit balance 
that the surrender of Lord Cornwallis would be treated as 
an accident. 

At this time England was full of fight. Napoleon had 
just capitulated and been imprisoned on the Island of Elba, 
and the whole fighting force that had been engaged with 
France was liberated, and all eyes were turned to the 
Southern coast, and for the command of the army one of 
Wellington's best generals was selected. 

At the time General Jackson was made major general, 
Providence or some mysterious agency, came in to remove 
six generals entitled to the place by rank. General Wil- 
kinson was transferred from New Orleans to the North- 
west, where he made a failure. Next Brigadier General 



198 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

Wade Hampton resigned; then Major General William 
Henry Harrison resigned. Then General Flourney, who 
succeeded Wilkinson, resigned; fifth, General Howard, of 
Kentucky, who was dispatched to succeed Flourney at New 
Orleans, died before reaching his post; sixth. General 
Gaines, sent to New Orleans at the first alarm, did not reach 
there in time. If he had reached there he would have been 
in command. 

After the Creek campaign. General Jackson had but a 
short rest. Immediately after his acceptance of the com- 
mission of major general reached Washington, he was 
ordered to take command of the entire Southern forces, 
which gave him only about three weeks' rest at home. The 
United States Army in the South consisted of two skeleton 
regiments. 

General Jackson with his aides reached the Holy Ground 

about the day of , 1814, and had associated 

with him the Government's trusted agent, Colonel Hayne, 
of South Carolina, who had been on the staff of Colonel 
Pinckney. 

It is due to history that some special mention should be 
made of Colonel Hawkins, who took part in making what 
is so well known as "Jackson's treaty." This is due because 
he set an example in dealing with the Indians that has, I 
trust, in the past been of service to the Government's Indian 
agents, and should, as long as we have the Indians as wards 
of the Government, be an example to Indian superintendents 
and agents. His appointment was made by General Wash- 
ington, and was the inception of that wise policy inaugu- 
rated by our Government and perfected by a system of 
legislation whose beneficent wisdom insured the result. 
There has been much unkind criticism of our treatment of 
the Indians, and it is true a few of our Indian agents have 
abused the great trust. It is only necessary to say that 
this in human affairs was expected. No government, no 



ANDREW JACKSON. 199 

^'' large corporation, has yet reached the point of never making 
a mistake in selecting agents. Every lawyer in the United 
States knows how our courts have leaned to the Indians in 
protecting them in their rights, and all who have been per- 
mitted to look in on the political department of our Govern- 
ment know with what care the Government has selected 
heads of the Indian Department. 

As a fact, Mr. Cleveland and the Secretary of the Interior, 
Mr. Lamar, were more concerned about this office than any 
other, and while General J. D. C. Atkins was a man of large 
experience in public affairs, it was his long and well-estab- 
lished character for integrity and a high sense of justice that 
secured him the place at the head of the Indian Department. 

No mere note or reference in a biography like this can do 
justice to Mr. Hawkins, so long the wise and discreet agent 
to the Creek Nation. It was his wisdom and high sense of 
justice that for so long a time — and until .that wonderful 
man, Tecumseh, the great ally of the British, came and 
stimulated them to the effort of regaining their country by 
killing all the women and children — kept the Creek Nation 
on good terms with the white people. General Jackson, in 
making this treaty, was, in a great measure, acting under 
instructions from the Government; however, with a large 
discretion vested in him. In making the treaty he met only 
the friendly chiefs. All the hostile chiefs not killed in the 
battles had left and gone to Florida, and were at Pensacola 
under the protection of the Spanish Governor, organizing 
to aid the British. The duty devolving on General Jackson 
was delicate and responsible, dealing with friends, but 
making a treaty which hostiles must be held to. The terms 
were dictated by General Jackson and to a conquered people. 

First, he required the giving up all or nearly all of that 
part of their territory to the United States which now makes 
the States of Alabama, Mississippi, and a part of West 
Tennessee. 



200 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

Second, they were to cease all intercourse with any Span- 
ish garrison or town, and admit no trader among them 
unless by license of the United States. 

Third, the right of the United States to make roads 
through the Creek Nation and establish military and trading 
posts, and to surrender their prophets and instigators of 
the war. 

When General Jackson made known his terms to the 
chiefs an interesting scene occurred. On one side of the 
General's spacious marquee were ranged the Creek chiefs, 
grave, silent, dignified, and wearing all the fantastic insignia 
of their authority. On the other were General Jackson, the 
venerable and beloved Colonel Hawkins, the General's aides, 
officers and secretary, and Colonel Hayne, then the recently 
appointed Inspector General of the Army. There was also 
a great concourse of Indians, Creek and Cherokee, and part 
of a regiment of troops on the ground, all interested in the 
events transpiring. 

Big Warrior, so named from his colossal proportions, a 
chief renowned among both races for his eloquence, who 
had never lifted against the white man a hostile hand, was 
the first to express the feelings of the council. His speech 
made a deep impression upon all who heard it, the majestic 
manner of the man adding force to his words. He told the 
story of the war, from what causes it had arisen; what 
sufferings it had caused ; what desolation it had left. He 
admitted that the coming of Jackson's army alone had saved 
the friendly party from destruction, and that the claim of 
the Government for indemnity was just. They were will- 
ing to transfer a portion of their land. But was not nego- 
tiation to that end premature? Was the war ended ? The 
war party, it was true, had fled to Florida, but they might 
return and renew the strife. The Indians required large 
hunting grounds, for their habits were not the habits of 
white men who stayed at home and drew all their substance 



ANDREW JACKSON. gOl 

from the soil. To give up so much land as the treaty 
required would reduce the tribe to the greatest distress 
which seemed to them neither just nor necessary. 

There were other speeches made. To these speeches 
Jackson replied at considerable length. Moved as he and 
all present had been by the addresses of the two chiefs he 
still felt it due to the United States to adhere to his demands. 
You know," said he, "that the portion of country which 
you desire to retain is that through which the intruders and 
mischief-makers from the lakes reached you, and urged 
your nation to those acts of violence that have involved your 
people in wretchedness and your country in ruin. Through 
It leads the path Tecumseh trod when he came to visit you 
That path must be stopped. Until this is done, your nation 
cannot expect happiness, nor mine security. I have already 
told you the reasons for demanding it. They are such as 
ought not, cannot be departed from. You must determine 
whether or not you are disposed to become friendly " 



202 I-IFE AND TIMES OF 



CHAPTER XVI. 

GREAT DIPLOMATIC SKILL SHOWN IN DRAWING UP OF 

CREEK TREATY SCHOLARLY CORRESPONDENCE WITH 

SECRETARY OF WAR ARMSTRONG AND THE SPANISH 
GOVERNOR OF LOUISIANA WITH SKILL^ INDEPEND- 
ENCE AND JUDGMENT JACKSON ARRANGED FOR AND 
CONDUCTED THE BATTLE OF NEW ORLEANS PENDING 
DELAYED INSTRUCTIONS FROM WASHINGTON. 

ONE object in writing the life of Andrew Jackson is 
not to make history for Tennessee, but to do justice 
to its history. It is very well known that Tennes- 
seans, led by the great soldier, were his main dependence, 
and won the celebrated 8th of January battle at New 
Orleans, but it is not this unparalleled victory over the 
British that I am at present dealing with. But few Ameri- 
cans have taken the pains to collect the facts leading up to 
that battle. The fifteen hundred dead British on the one 
side, and on the other six men killed and seven wounded, as 
General Jackson reported to the Secretary of War the next 
day after the battle, has, as a rule, been enough to satisfy 
Americans without looking further. In the duration of the 
battle, in the difference in numbers, in the disparity in the 
number killed, and in its effect on international affairs, it is 
the most remarkable battle ever fought in any country. 
But this does not tell the whole story — the defeated army 
was made up of trained soldiers who had served under the 
most renowned soldier in the world, and Jackson had only 
militia, and with 6,000 against 12,000. 

But my mind is not now on this great battle. With 
minuteness and care I shall examine the facts and conditions 



ANDREW JACKSON. £03 

leading up to it, and especially as to who fought it and 
under what circumstances, and the courage and judgment 
displayed m getting ready to fight it, and in fighting it 
The man who looks back at the conditions sees nothing but 
hardihood, desperation. I have already said that when the 
British came back in 1812 to correct the mistake Cornwallis 
made in surrendering the plantations, they found but one 
hon on the farm. I propose now to prove, as clearly as 
circumstantial evidence can reach a demonstration, that but 
for Jackson and his army the entire South would have been 
overrun, the helpless people literally hacked to pieces, and 
the entire country placed so near subjugation that the 
humiliation would have been close kin to it; and that while 
the treaty of Ghent was made before the battle was fought 
that treaty would not have been made if General Jackson 
had not destroyed England's greatest ally, the Creek Nation • 
and then I will show that but for Tennessee soldiers — 
volunteers and raw militia — the battle at New Orleans 
could not have been fought, and the entire South would 
have been overrun. The few soldiers the Government had 
would have been captured or massacred, as they were at 
Detroit and Frenchtown; and, finally, the most humiliating 
treaty probably submitted to that had ever been made 
between two great peoples. The conditions were enough 
to appall any man except one with the faith and will thlt 
Jackson had, and no other man ever had such a combination. 
In the first place, we were in a war that the richest, and 
as was generally said, the most enlightened part of our 
country— New England— was utterly opposed to, and was 
earnestly insisting on Mr. Madison making the very best 
settlement he could get ; and all New England was openly 
rejoicmg when Napoleon capitulated and was sent off to 
Elba in 1814, because, they said, now that the long war 
between England and France had been ended and the army 
and navy that had been fighting France was liberated to be 



204 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

turned on the United States ; therefore, Mr, Madison would 
now see that he could not carry on the war any longer and 
would have to make peace ; and then New England had the 
"we-told-you-so" argument, and pointed to the fact that 
Mr. Madison, the President, and Mr. Jefferson, an ex- 
President, had both opposed the war as long as they were 
allowed to, because they said we were not able, having no 
standing army to fight England's trained soldiers, and that 
situated as we were war should be the last resort, and not 
until we had an army; and then our credit was so low in 
1814 that Mr. Monroe, the Secretary of War, was pledging 
his large private fortune for money to carry it on. 

The victories over our army at the North had been so 
uniform that the English press and people, as I showed in 
a former chapter, were looking upon us with contempt. 
Then it was no secret that a great fleet and powerful army 
were being organized in England to destroy all the Southern 
seaports and to overrun the country, and that the British 
press and all the English people were treating the expedition 
to the South in the nature of an excursion. 

At this time our leading men were in Europe. Mr. 
Adams, Mr. Clay, Mr. Bayard, Mr. Gallatin, Mr. Russell, 
the Ministers to Ghent, were sorely tried by the large 
demands made by the British Commissioners, and they were 
not a little discouraged when the French War was ended and 
the British soldiers were thereby liberated to fight the United 
States. The letters of these gentlemen, some of which I 
published in a former chapter, show their great anxiety about 
the preparation for attacking the South and the divided 
sentiment at home. Of course, these letters did not get 
beyond the President's mansion till after the war, but the 
facts about which they were written became public in various 
ways. 

One great fact General Jackson did know — that the 
North had been so badly beaten by the British trained sol- 



ANDREW JACKSON. 205 

diers that it was creating the greatest anxiety among Gov- 
ernment officials, and that he had only reached the position 
of major general by the resignation of several generals, in 
effect resigning in front of the enemy. 

The only bright spot in all the surroundings was that he 
had so effectually cleaned up the powerful Creek Nation, the 
ally in the South so much depended on by the British, that 
if an army could be raised in Tennessee it could cross the 
wilderness, through the Creek Nation, without having to 
fight its way to get to the Gulf coast. 

By the five battles Jackson fought with the Creek warriors 
he had killed or driven out of all that country lying between 
Tennessee and the Gulf of Mexico, where the British would 
commence operations, every single hostile chief; and then 
by a treaty with the friendly chiefs he had acquired posses- 
sion of all the country, or nearly all, which is now the States 
of Alabama and Mississippi, with the right to make roads 
and establish military posts. 

All under Jackson in the Creek War understood him to 
be avenging the awful massacre at Fort Mimms, and pro- 
tecting the women and children on the frontiers. But when 
Jackson came to the treaty it was apparent, and the purpose 
was made manifest in his talk at the time of the treaty, as 
well as in his Nashville speech when he returned from the 
Creek War, at least a main purpose was to open the country 
so that a Tennessee army could reach the coast without 
fighting its way, and meet the British at Mobile, New 
Orleans, Pensacola, or any other place they might land. 

The most remarkable spectacle in military affairs that 
ever appeared on the American continent was Andrew 
Jackson when he closed up the Creek campaign by making 
the treaty, and in a war with the most warlike nation in the 
world, and with a great army that had followed Wellington, 
and with a navy whose officers, some of whom, at least, had 
fought under Nelson at the Battle of the Nile, concentrating 



206 ^^FE, AND TIMES OF 

its forces, land and navy, on the coast just in front of him, 
when he had three pieces of regiments only, his only hope 
and his only resources being two officers, Coffee and Carroll, 
back in Tennessee raising an army of volunteers, with which 
he proposed to whip, and believed he could do it, all the 
forces that England could send. Standing there in front 
of this vast military power, with scarcely soldiers enough for 
a bodyguard, he had one eye on the Spanish Governor over 
at Pensacola, only two days' march away, who was organ- 
izing for the British army all the hostile Indians that he had 
driven out of the Creek country, making his city a store- 
house, a depot of supplies for the great army that was to 
come, the harbor a welcome place for the British ships, and 
a British flag run up over His Excellency's abiding place, 
and his great fort — the Barancas — at the service of the 
strutting British officer, Nichols. There Jackson stood, 
with one eye on this Governor, and the other eye looking 
out for the approaching great army, his trust in God, and 
the Tennessee soldiers that Coffee and Carroll were getting 
up in Tennessee, 400 miles away, and at the same time with 
a faith that enabled him to send a note to the impudent and 
international law-breaker that was Governor of Florida, 
that he would correspond with him in future only by turning 
his cannon on his palace. 

The faith of this great soldier must have been God-given, 
for he never doubted he could whip the British army when 
it came, though the army was practically in sight, while his 
soldiers were in Tennessee rubbing up their squirrel rifles. 

Early in the war the President had asked General Wil- 
kinson, in command at New Orleans, for information about 
the defense of New Orleans, to which General Wilkinson 
replied : 

"To defend New Orleans and the mouths of the Mississ- 
ippi against a dominant naval force and 6,000 veteran 
troops, rank and file, from the West India station, the fol- 



ANDREW JACKSON. £07 

lowing force is indispensable : Four of the heaviest national 
vessels; forty gunboats to mount i8 and 24-pounders; six 
steamboats for transportation, each to hold 400 men with a 
month s provisions; four stout redeaux each, to mount 24- 
pounders; 10,000 regular troops; 4,500 militia." 

This red-tape, sheepskin general, in the strongest language 
he could afford to use, condemned President Madison for 
not adopting his scheme - and this is the general who would 
have been in command at New Orleans if Jackson at Natchez 
had discharged his army as directed by the Secretary of 
War. -^ 

Jackson defended New Orleans with between 6,000 and 
7,000 men, 5,300 of them Tennessee volunteers in hunting 
shirts, wearing coonskin caps, and armed with squirrel rifles 
This IS the difference between a general made in the back- 
room of a schoolhouse and one that God makes. Yet this 
man belonged to the class of military critics that never -et 
done finding out what a mistake was made in makin- 
Jackson a Major General in the United States Army. 

The elements in General Jackson's character that made 
him transcendently great at the head of an army were vigi- 
lance, industry, and foresight. That he took a month to 
make a treaty with the Creek Indians was a matter of some ■ 
surprise and caused some criticism at the time, because 
nobody knew what he was doing, except that he was making 
the treaty. But since the books have been opened it is mani- 
fest that Jackson was sleeping but little. The matters of the 
treaty were not neglected, but they were so well attended to 
that when the treaty was made it practically put an end to 
the great scourge of all our frontiers — the Indian wars. 
But while he was making his treaty, at night, when other 
people slept, that facile pen of his was employed conferring 
with the Governor of Tennessee, the Governor of Georgia'' 
the Governor of Louisiana, and the Territorial Governor of 
the Mississippi Territory, about preparations to meet the 



208 J-JPE. AND TIMES OF 

British, at the same time urging the Government to permit 
him to enter the Spanish territory at Pensacola, a place used 
by the British ships, where the hostile Indians and runaway 
negroes were being drilled and given arms to help the 
British, and the Governor's house a place of rendezvous 
for British officers, with the British flag flying over it. All 
this Jackson knew by the time the treaty was made. He 
had about him a number of friendly Indians, some of whom 
he had the greatest confidence in, and with the help of 
Colonel Hawkins, who had been with the Indians twenty- 
five years, he selected certain Indians who could be relied on 
and sent them into Florida to get information. 

He had with him also his old reliable standby, Captain 
Gordon, who stood by him when his troops were leaving at 
Fort Strother, and who, when Jackson said, "If only two 
men will stay with me, I will stay here and die in the wilder- 
ness," stepped out and said, "General, I will stay with you." 

Jackson, in addition to the friendly Indians, sent Gordon 
to Pensacola, who ascertained all the facts, and the friendly 
Indians managed to get some of the new guns, actually new 
British guns, which the treacherous Governor, Marequez, 
was giving to the Indians. One of these guns was brought 
back to General Jackson. He found the British were land- 
ing arms at Appalachicola to be distributed among the 
Indians. 

As early as July 21st he wrote to the Governor of Louis- 
iana, giving him the information he had. He also wrote 
the Secretary of War : 

"If the hostile Indians have taken refuge in Florida and 
are there fed and clothed and protected ; if the British have 
landed large munitions of war, and are fortifying and stir- 
ring up the savages, will you only say to me, raise a few 
hundred militia, which can be quickly done, and with such 
regular force as can be conveniently collected, make a 
descent upon Pensacola and reduce it ? If so, I promise you 



ANDREW JACKSON. 209 

En^^h -nV^'' South shall have a speedy termination, and 
t^^^qSrten"'"'' " '"''^^'^ ''''^ '^^ '^'^^'' ^" 

This letter was not answered in time. It was written on 
the i8th of July, 1814, and sent forward by mail. The 
answer reached General Jackson on the 17th of January by 
due course of mail. The answer said : 

"The case you put is a very strong- one. and if all the 
circumstances stated by you are right, the conclusion is 
irresistible. It becomes our duty to carry our arms where 
we hnd our enemies. 

"It is believed, and I am so directed by the President to 
say, that there is a disposition on the part of the Spanish 
Governor not to break with the United States, nor to encour- 
age any conduct on the part of her subordinate agents having 
a tendency to such rupture. We must, therefore, in this 
case, be careful to ascertain facts, and even to distinguish 
what, on the part of the Spanish authorities, may be the 
effect of menace and compulsion or of their choice and 
policy; the result of this inquiry must govern If they 
admit, feed, arm, and co-operate with the British and hostile 
Indians, we must strike on the broad principle of self- 
preservation. Under other and different circumstances, we 
must forbear." 

What General Jackson may have thought when this letter 
was received on January 17, 1815, just six months, lacking 
one day, after he had written the pressing letter to which 
it was a reply, will never be known. Mr. Eaton, who was 
more intimately connected with General Jackson than any 
of his other friends, says : 

"How it was so long delayed we know not, nor shall we 
undertake to conjecture. One thing is certain — the delay 
cast upon General Jackson a degree of responsibility rarely 
put upon a general in the field." 



14 



210 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

Mr. Eaton says the Government did know the facts given 
in the letter of General Jackson to be true by frequent com- 
munications made to it. And then he makes this striking 
comment, which I adopt as the best thing that could be said 
about this mishap : 

"We would, however, recommend in all cases where a 
measure is to be proceeded in, either from necessity or a 
well-founded apprehension of its propriety, that the Govern- 
ment should adopt it without fear or trembling, or a regard 
to the consequences involved; nor leave to be determined 
by success or failure of the design whether an officer acting 
upon his own responsibility and for the good of his country 
shall become the subject of commendation or reproof." 

This criticism carries with it an implication of distrust as 
to the good faith of the Secretary of War, leaving the reader 
to infer not only that the Government put the responsibility 
on the general in the field, but that it intended to approve 
or dissent from his action, as might be the Governor's 
interest, after the general had acted; and but for the fact 
that it was the Government, the Secretary of War, who, 
from his high position and sacred trust, cannot, by anything 
less than affirmative proof of the highest character, be impli- 
cated in shirking a responsibility of such supreme importance 
and casting it on a general in the field ; therefore, I cannot 
believe the Secretary of War evaded, but neglected, the per- 
formance of this duty. The Secretary of War was Mr. 
Armstrong, who was a cautious, but not a cowardly, man 
in the discharge of duty. Having all the facts, it was clearly 
the duty of the Executive Department of the Government, 
in a great emergency, unless Congress was in session ; then 
the matter might be submitted to Congress, for it was 
making war on Spain. 

From July to November General Jackson waited on 
instructions, having asked to be allowed to enter Florida 
and deal with the Spanish Governor, who was openly and 



ANDREW JACKSON. 211 

defiantly aiding the British, not only in making Pensacola 
the base of supplies for the army, but was arming the Indians 
and runaway negroes to fight in the British army. In the 
meantime, as it afterwards turned out, the Spanish Govern- 
ment was giving our Government the most profound assur- 
ances of its neutrality. General Jackson, with the strain 
upon him, had become exceedingly impatient. After 
writing many letters imploring the Secretary of War to give 
him authority to go into the Spanish territory, he actually 
lectured the Secretary of War in the following language : 

"How long will the United States pocket the reproach and 
open insults of Spain ? It is alone by a manly and dignified 
course that we can secure respect from other nations and 
peace to our own. Temporizing policy is not only a curse, 
but a disgrace to any nation. It is a fact that a British 
captain of marines is and has for some time past been 
engaged in drilling and organizing the fugitive Creeks, 
under the eye of the Governor ; endeavoring by his influence 
and presents to draw to his standard, as well, the peaceable 
as the hostile Indians. 

"If permission had been given me to march against this 
place twenty days ago, I would ere this have planted there 
the American eagle. Now, we must trust alone to our valor 
and the justice of our cause." 

General Jackson had already had considerable correspond- 
ence with the Spanish Governor; had sent a special mes- 
senger, his trusted friend, to him with letters informing him 
of the wrongs being committed by aiding Captain Nichols 
in arming the negroes and Indians, in giving continued 
shelter to British ships of war in the harbor, and making 
Pensacola a depot of supplies ; in fact, making his Govern- 
ment an active aid to the British. 

To this the Governor replied, claiming that he was doing 
nothing but what he had a right, under Spanish treaties 
with the Creek Indians and Great Britain, to do, and closing 



212 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

the letter with an insulting reference to the well-known Jean 
Lafitte's town of refuge, by saying to Jackson : 

'Turn your eyes to the Island of Barataria, and you will 
there perceive that within the very territory of the United 
States pirates are sheltered and protected, with the manifest 
design of committing hostilities by sea upon the merchant 
vessels of Spain, and with such scandalous notoriety that the 
cargoes of our vessels, taken by them, have been publicly 
sold in Louisiana." 

He closed his letter by intimating that General Jackson 
had not used respectful language in the correspondence. 

Jackson's reply to this letter was truly Jacksonian, as 
follows : 

"Were I clothed with diplomatic powers, for the purpose 
of discussing the topics embraced in the wide range of 
injuries of which you complain, and which have long since 
been adjusted, I could easily demonstrate that the United 
States have been always faithful to their treaties, steadfast 
in their friendships, nor have ever claimed anything that 
was not warranted by justice. They have endured many 
insults from the governors and other officers of Spain, 
which, if sanctioned by their sovereign, amounted to acts 
of war, without any previous declaration on the subject. 
The property of our citizens has been captured at sea, and if 
compensation has not been refused, it has at least been with- 
held. But as no such powers have been delegated to me, I 
shall not assume them, but leave them to the representatives 
of our respective Governments. 

'T have the honor of being entrusted with the command 
of this district. Charged with its protection, and the safety 
of its citizens, I feel my ability to discharge the task, and 
trust your Excellency will always find me ready and willing 
to go forward in the performance of that duty whenever 
circumstances shall render it necessary. I agree with you, 
perfectly, that candor and polite language should at all times 
characterize the communications between the officers of 
friendly sovereignties, and I assert, without the fear of con- 



ANDREW JACKSON. 213 

tradiction, that my former letters were couched in terms the 
most respectful and unexceptionable. I only requested, and 
did not demand, as you asserted, the ringleaders of the Creek 
confederacy, who had taken refuge in your town, and who 
have violated all laws, moral, civil and divine, should be 
delivered up. This I had a right to do from the treaty 
which I sent you, and which I now again enclose, with a 
request that you will change your translation, believing as 

^{^n.^^ T"?""" ^''''"'^'* """^ ^""^ '"^""^"^^ ^"d has deceived you. 
What kind of an answer you returned, a reference to 
your letter will explain. The whole of it breathes nothing 
but hostility, grounded upon assumed facts and false charges 
and entirely evading the inquiries that had been made 

I can but express my astonishment at the protest against 
the cession of Alabama, lying within the acknowledged 
jurisdiction of the United States, and which has been ratified 
m due form, by the principal chiefs and warriors of the 
nation. But my astonishment subsides when, in comparing 
It, I find It upon a par with the rest of your conduct- taken 
together, they afford a sufficient justification for any conse- 
quences that may ensue. My Government will protect every 
mch of her territory, her citizens, and her property, from 
msult and depredation, regardless of the political revolutions 
of Europe ; and although she has been at all times sedulous 
to preserve a good understanding with all the world, yet she 
has sacred rights that cannot be trampled on with impunity 
Spam had better look to her own intestine commotions 
before she walks forth in that majesty of strength and power 
which you threaten to draw down upon the United States 
Your Excellency has been candid enough to admit your 
having supplied the Indians with arms. In addition to this 
I have learned that a British flag has been seen flying on 
one of your forts. All this is done whilst you are pretend- 
ing to be neutral. You cannot be surprised then — but on 
the contrary, will provide a fort in your town for my soldiers 
and Indians — should I take it in my head to pay you a 

visit. ir J J 

"In future I beg you to withhold your insulting charo-es 
against niy Government, for one more inclined to listen^'to 
slander than I am; nor consider me any more as a diplo- 



214 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

matic character, unless so proclaimed to you from the 
mouths of my cannon." 

It would be difficult to find in history a general in com- 
mand of an army, under more trying conditions, his own 
Government knowing all the facts, refusing to say do or not 
do. By this time he had become fully aware that the attack 
would be on New Orleans, for he had ordered Carroll, who 
was raising troops in Tennessee, to go down the river to 
New Orleans, and he had ordered Coffee, who was raising 
troops in Tennessee, to cross the country and reach Mobile 
as soon as possible. He had also made up his mind as to 
what he would do with the British ally at Pensacola, that 
being easy of access for the British by water, and the depot 
of supplies, and in his rear when he moved on New Orleans, 
and what he did the next chapter will tell. 



ANDREW JACKSON. 215 



CHAPTER XVII. 

Jackson's indomitable will^ invincible courage and 

POWER to inspire HIS MEN ALONE MADE POSSIBLE A 

successful campaign in THE SOUTH FOR THIS 

ALONE HE DESERVES A MONUMENT FROM THE NATION 

THE LITTLE-KNOWN BATTLE OF MOBILE JACKSON^S 

CHARACTERISTIC MODESTY GIVES CREDIT TO HIS 
OFFICERS AND SOLDIERS. 

WHAT any other man except Jackson would have 
done in the crisis which came at the end of 
the Creek campaign, including the treaty 
which he made, may be readily conjectured. Jackson's will 
power is universally admitted, but his faith is something 
miraculous. "I think," or "I hope," were not in his vocab- 
ulary. "I will," "I can," were as handy as "By the Eternal." 
To illustrate : When on his way out to fight the Dickerson 
duel — which he would gladly have avoided, but could not 
with his sense of untarnished manhood — he said to his 
second that he should let Dickerson shoot first ; then he 
would kill Dickerson, though he might first be shot through 
the head. He did wait till Dickerson fired, the ball passing 
through his body, inflicting a wound that lasted through 
life, but neither his second nor his surgeon, standing by, 
knew he had been hit until they retired from the field, not- 
withstanding the delay; after Dickerson fired, when he 
drew on Dickerson the pistol snapped. Then cocking his 
pistol, he fired the fatal shot. 

He was not only willing to meet the British army with 
volunteers yet to be raised, but implored the Secretary of 
War to let him do with the Spaniards, allies of the British, 



216 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

what he had done with the other ally, the Creek Indians; 
that is, take care of the Spanish Governor at Pensacola, with 
his Indians and runaway negroes, backed up by a British 
captain of marines, before he moved out to fight Old 
England. 

Jackson's genius in war, but for his ability to accomplish 
everything he undertook, would have been regarded by the 
average military man as inexcusable rashness. Jackson 
was not moving in the dark. What he had before him was 
visible. So sure were the English people, and especially 
the army and navy, that nothing was concealed in England 
or on their islands out near our coasts ; in fact, they seemed 
anxious to make all their plans as public as possible. The 
advance fleet was in command of the Honorable W. H. 
Percy, of the ship Hermes; the commander of the troops 
was Lieut.-Col. Edward Nichols. Early in September, 
1814, this fleet came over from Havana, and the ships took 
shelter in the harbor at Pensacola, and Colonel Nichols made 
the Governor's office his headquarters and ran up the British 
flag. The first thing the daring British upstart did was to 
issue to his soldiers an order, signing it, "Edward Nichols, 
commanding His Britannic Majesty's forces at Pensacola" : 
"Soldiers, you are called upon to discharge a duty of the 
utmost peril. You will have to perform long and tedious 
marches through wildernesses, swamps, and water courses; 
your enemy, from long habit inured to the climate, will have 
great advantage over you. But remember the twenty-one 
years of toil and glory of your country, and resolve to follow 
the example of your glorious companions, who have fought 
and spilt their blood in her service." 

This address was extended to great length, principally 
his great Government and himself. 

This order to the army and the proclamation to the people 
of Louisiana and Kentucky were immediately, or at least as 
soon as they could be carried, published in New Orleans 



ANDREW JACKSON. 217 

papers, and, in fact, in the leading newspapers all over the 
United States, so that not only from what was being done 
in England, and from General Jackson's letters in July to 
the Secretary of War, but from the commander of forces 
at Pensacola, the Government had the first information 
of the supremely critical and dangerous condition of 
General Jackson, commanding all the forces in the South 
This was m September. The Government not only gave 
him no help, but refused to answer his July letter and his 
earnest appeal to be allowed to invade the Spanish territory 
To tell the plain truth, the Government was letting the 
South take care of itself, giving all the support to the shat- 
tered and defeated armies in the North, hoping to protect 
the cities of the section which was being so completely over- 
run by the British. 

This is a period in General Jackson's career that puts him 
first on the list of Americans. The Government made him 
Major General in the United States Army, but gave him no 
army, and practically said to him. Get your army as best 
you can, and take care of the Southwest, while the Govern- 
ment takes care of the Northern frontiers; and this, too 
after the Government had the fullest information from its 
diplomatic service in Europe of the preparations being made 
to overrun the South. General Jackson not only raised his 
army and took care of the Southwest, but he took care of the 
nation s army by hanging out a signal which all the nations 
of Europe have seen and respected. Jackson did it, and 
while the great British captain that Jackson sent back to 
England in a coffin, with his respects, has a monument in 
St. Paul for all Britons to look at, the Government of the 
United States has never laid a slab over the grave of the 
immortal soldier, and but for the timely interference of 
General Bate in the Senate, would recently have removed 
the equestrian statue in the public grounds at Washington 
to an obscure place, so that the soldiers, statesmen, and 



\ 



218 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

fashionable people of Washington could have a better view 
of the grass and trees in a capitol that Jackson immortalized 
both in v^ar and in council. The people of the Southwest, 
when they get rich enough, ought to build a monument to 
this great American that will reach nearer the skies than 
any shaft that the coming generation will erect, unless a 
greater than Jackson will arise to proclaim the liberties of 
the people. 

When it became manifest that the Secretary of War was 
not going to answer his letters, and that he was to practi- 
cally have no assistance from the Government, Jackson was 
quick to determine his course. 

Early in October it was known by appearances that the 
British army and navy were going to operate against the 
South from Jamaica. General Jackson was not slow in 
determining that the attack would be on New Orleans. To 
overrun and subjugate the South, as had been shown by 
unquestioned evidence, the purpose, as he concluded, would 
be to ascend the Mississippi River; yet he did not doubt 
that both Pensacola and Mobile would be used as means of 
flanking him when he got to New Orleans. Therefore, he 
decided that both must be taken care of. The entrance to 
Mobile Bay he regarded as a most important point, so 
important that, over the dissenting opinion of all the officers 
whom he could consult with confidence and propriety. Gen- 
eral Jackson made up his mind to defend the entrance to the 
bay. Upon examination, he found Fort Bowyer, an old 
fort at the entrance, in a most dilapidated condition. He 
immediately put Major William Lawrence, of the Second 
Infantry, in command to repair the fort as far as possible, 
and with i6o men, many of them raw troops, to defend it. 
The Tennessee troops had not arrived ; in fact. Coffee and 
Carroll were just getting ready to move, one (Coffee) under 
orders to come to Mobile as rapidly as possible; the other 
(Carroll) to hurry up his boats and meet Jackson at New 



ANDREW JACKSON. 219 

Orleans. But with Jackson's knowledge of the facts, he 
believed Nichol's first move would be to reach Mobile. 
Hence he spent his days in giving instructions about repair- 
ing the fort and making defense when the time came, and 
his nights in praying that Blucher (Coffee) would come. 

Suddenly, however, and before Coffee came, Nichols, with 
four ships commanded by Captain Percy — these ships were 
the Hermes, Captain Percy, twenty-two guns ; the Sophia, 
in command of Captain Lockyer, eighteen guns; then The 
Carron, eighteen guns, and the Cholers, eighteen guns — all 
under the command of Captain Percy, as brave an officer 
as belonged to the British marine — came down upon the 
improvised fort. Nichols had landed 600 Indians that he 
and Manuez had organized at Pensacola, with other infantry 
under his command. The officers and men all came together 
and took an oath in substance to defend the fort until it was 
shot away, and to die rather than surrender without a guar- 
antee against the Indian cruelties. The early biographers 
have differed somewhat about the battle, but I give here the 
report made by Major Lawrence to General Jackson, and 
Jackson's report to the Secretary of War. 

"General Jackson to Hon. James Moore : 

"Sir: — With lively emotions of satisfaction I communi- 
cate that success has crowned the efforts of our brave sol- 
diers in resisting and repulsing a combined British naval 
and land force, which on the 15th instant attacked Fort 
Bowyer on the point of Mobile. 

"I enclose a copy of the official report to Major William 
Lawrence, of the Second Infantry, who commanded. In 
addition to the particulars communicated in his letter, I 
have learned that the ship which was destroyed was the 
Hermes, of from 24 to 28 guns, Captain The Honorable 
Wm. H. Percy, senior officer in the Gulf of Mexico; and 
the brig so considerably damaged is The Sophie, 18 guns, 
Capt. William Lockyer. The other ship was The Carron, 
of from 24 to 28 guns, Captain Spencer, son of Earl 



220 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

Spencer ; the other brig's name unknown. On board of the 
Carron eighty-five men were killed and wounded, among 
whom was Colonel Nichol, of the Royal Marines, who lost 
an eye by a splinter. The land force consisted of no 
marines and 200 Creek Indians, under the command of 
Captain Woodbine, of the marines, and about twenty artil- 
lerists, with one four-and-a-half-inch howitzer, from which 
they discharged shells and nine-pound shot. They re-em- 
barked the piece and retreated by land towards Pensacola, 
whence they came. 

"By the morning report of the i6th, there were present 
in the fort, fit for duty, officers and men, 158. The result 
of this engagement has stamped the character of the war 
in this quarter highly favorable to the American arms. It 
is an event from which may be drawn the most favorable 
augury. An achievement so glorious in itself, and so im- 
portant in its consequences should be appreciated by the 
Government; and those concerned are entitled to, and will 
doubtless receive, the most gratifying evidence of the ap- 
probation of their country. 

"In the words of Major Lawrt;nce, 'Where all behaved 
well it is unnecessary to discriminate.' But all being meri- 
torious, I beg leave to annex the names of the officers who 
were engaged and present, and hope they will, individually, 
be deemed worthy of distinction. 

"Major William Lawrence, Second Infrantry, command- 
ing; Captain Walsh, of the artillery; then Captains Cham- 
berlain, Brownlow, and Bradley, of the Second Infantry; 
Captain Sands, Deputy Commissary of Ordnance; Lieu- 
tenants Vilard, Sturges, Conway, H. Sanders, T. R. San- 
ders, Brooks, Davis and C. Sanders, all of the Second In- 
fantry. 

"I am confident that your own feelings will lead you to 
participate in my wishes on this subject. Permit me to 
suggest the propriety and justice of allowing to this gallant 
band the value of the vessel destroyed by them. I remain, 
etc., 

"Andrew Jackson^ 
''Brigadier General Commanding. 
"The Honorable Secretary of War." 



ANDREW JACKSON. 221 

The following is the "official report of MaJ. William 
Lawrence," alluded to by General Jackson in his letter to 
the Secretary of War : 

"Major Lawrence to General Jackson: 

"Fort Bowyer, September 15, 1814. 
"Sir : — After writing the enclosed, I was prevented by the 
approach of the enemy from sending it by an express. At 
Meridian they were under full sail, with an easy and favor- 
able breeze, standing directly for the fort, and at 4 p. m. we 
opened our battery, which was returned from two ships and 
two brigs as they approached. The action became general 
at about 20 minutes past 4, and was continued without 
mtermission on either side until 7, when one ship and two 
brigs were compelled to retire. The leading ship, sup- 
posed to be the Commodore, mounted twenty-two 32-pound 
cannonades, having anchored nearest our battery, was so 
much disabled, her cable being cut by our shot, that she 
drifted on shore, within 600 yards of the battery, and the 
other vessels having gotten out of our reach, we kept such 
a tremendous fire upon her that she was set on fire and 
abandoned by the few of the crew who survived. At 10 
p. M. we had the pleasure of witnessing the explosion of 
her magazine. The loss of lives on board must have been 
immense, as we are certain no boats left her except three, 
which had previously gone to her assistance, and one of 
these, I believe, was sunk; in fact, one of her boats was 
burnt alongside of her. 

"The brig that followed her I am certain was much 
damaged, both in hull and rigging. The other two did not 
approach near enough to be injured, but I am confident they 
did not escape, as a well-directed fire was kept on them dur- 
ing the whole time. 

"During the action, a battery of a 12-pounder and a 
howitzer was opened on our rear, but without doin^ any 
execution, and was silenced by a few shot. Our loss is four 
privates killed, and five privates wounded. 

"Toward the close of the action the flag-staff was shot 
away, but the flag was immediately hoisted on a spun-staff 
over the parapet. While the flag was down, the enemy 
kept up their most incessant and tremendous fire; the men 



222 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

were withdrawn from the curtains and northeast bastion, as 
the enemy's own shot completely protected our rear, except 
the position they had chosen for their batter}'. 

"Where all behave well it is unnecessary to discriminate. 
Suffice it to say, every officer and man did his duty; the 
whole behaved with that coolness and intrepidity which is 
characteristic of the true American, and which could scarcely 
have been expected from men, most of whom had never 
seen an enemy, and were now for the first time exposed 
nearly three hours to a force of nearly or quite four guns to 
one. 

"We fired during the action between four hundred and 
five hundred guns, most of them double shotted, and after 
the first half-hour but few missed effect. 

"September i6th, ii o'clock a. m. 

"Upon an examination of our battery this morning we 
find upwards of three hundred shots and shotholes in the 
inside of the north and east curtains and northeast bastions, 
of all calibres, from musket ball to 32-pound shot. In the 
northeast bastion there were three guns dismounted, one of 
which, a 4-pounder, was broken off near the trunnions by 
a 32-pound shot, and another much battered. I regret to 
say that both the 24-pounders are cracked in such a manner 
as to render them unfit for sen.nce. 

"I am informed by two deserters from the land force, 
who have just arrived here, and whom I send for your dis- 
posal, that a re-enforcement is expected, when they will 
doubtless endeavor to wipe off the stain of yesterday. 

"If you will send the Amelia down we may probably save 
most of all the ship's guns, as her wreck is lying in six or 
seven feet of water, and some of them are just covered. 
They will not, however, answer for the fort, as they are 
too short. 

"By the deserters we learn that the ship we have de- 
stroyed was the Hermes, but her commander's name they 
did not recollect. It was the Commodore, and he doubtless 
fell on his quarterdeck, as we had a raging fire upon it at 
about two hundred yards distance for some time. 

"To Captain Sands, who will have the honor of handing 
you this dispatch, I refer you for a more particular account 
of the movements of the enemy than may be contained in 



ANDREW JACKSON. 223 

my letters; his services, both before and during the action, 
were of great importance, and I consider fully justify me 
in having detained him. Captain Walsh and several men 
were much burned in the accidental explosion of the two 
cartridges. They are not included in the list of the 
wounded heretofore given. 

"The enemy's fleet this morning at daybreak were at 
anchor in the channel, about four miles from the fort. 
Shortly after it got under weigh and stood at sea. After 
passing the bar, they hove to, and boats have been con- 
stantly passing between the disabled brig and the others. I 
presume the former is so much injured as to render it 
necessary to lighten her. 

"Fifteen Minutes after i p. m. 
"The whole fleet have this moment made sail and are 
standing to sea. I have the honor to be, etc., 

"William Lawrence."" 
"Major General Andrew Jackson." 

I give here General Jackson's letter in reply to Nichol's 
proclamation to the Louisianians and Kentuckians : 

"LouisiANiANS — The base, the perfidious Britons have 
attempted to invade your country. They had the temerity 
to attack Fort Bowyer with their incongruous horde of In- 
dian and negro assassins. They seemed to have forgotten 
that this fort was defended by freemen. They were not 
long indulged in this error. The gallant Lawrence 
with his little Spartan band, has given them a lecture that 
will last for ages; he has taught them what men can do 
when fighting for their liberties, when contending against 
slaves. He has convinced Sir W. H. Percy that his com- 
panions in arms are not to be conquered by proclamations; 
that the strongest British bark is not invulnerable to the 
force of American artillery, directed by the steady, nervous 
arm of a freeman. 

"Louisianians, the proud Briton, the natural and sworn 
enemies of all Frenchmen, has called upon you, by procla- 
mation, to aid him in his tyranny, and to prostrate the holy 
temple of our liberty. Can Louisiana, can Frenchmen, can 



224 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

Americans, ever stoop to be the slaves or allies of Great 
Britain ? 

"The proud, vainglorious boaster, Colonel Nichols, 
when he addressed you, Louisianians and Kentuckians, has 
forgotten that you were the votaries of freedom, or he would 
never have pledged the honor of a British officer for the 
faithful performance of his promise, to lure you from your 
fidelity to the government of your choice. I ask you, Louis- 
ianians, can we place any confidence in the honor of men 
who have quoted an alliance with pirates and robbers? 
Have not these noble Britons, these honorable men, Colonel 
Nichols and the Honorable Capt. W. H. Percy, the true 
representatives of their royal master, done this? Have 
they not made offers to the pirates of Barrataria to join 
them and their holy cause? And have they not dared to 
insult you by calling on you to associate, as brethren, with 
them in this hellish banditti? 

"Louisianians, the government of your choice is engaged 
in a just and honorable contest for the security of your in- 
dividual freedom and her natural rights. On you a part 
of America — the only country on earth where every man 
enjoys freedom, where its blessings are alike extended to 
the poor and the rich — calls to protect these rights from the 
invading usurpation of Britain, and she calls not in vain. 
I well know that every man whose soul beats high at the 
proud title of freeman; that every Louisianian, either by 
birth or adoption, will promptly obey the voice of his 
country; will rally 'round the Eagle of Columbia, secure 
it from the pending danger, or nobly die in the last ditch 
in its defense. 

"The individual who refuses to defend his rights when 
called upon by his government deserves to be a slave, and 
must be punished as an enemy to his country and a friend 
to her foe. 

"The undersigned has been entrusted with the defense 
of your country. On you he relies to aid him in this im- 
portant duty; in this reliance he hopes not to be mistaken. 
He trusts in the justice of his cause and the patriotism of 
his country. Confident that any future attempt to invade 
our soil will be repelled as the last, he calls not upon either 
pirates or robbers to join him in the glorious cause. 



ANDREW JACKSON. 225 

"Your Governor has been fully authorized by me to 
organize any volunteer company, batalHon, or regiment 
which may proffer its services under this call, and is in- 
formed of their probable destination. Respectfully sub- 
niitted, Andrew Jackson/' 

I am sure readers of American history will approve of 
this entire record. Every scrap of it being official and new 
nearly all who read it will feel as I do — that it was a great 
American battle and a victory of which any nation might be 
proud, that our people know but little about^the battle of 
Fort Bowyer. 

In my intercourse with men, I have found not half a 
dozen who had heard of the battle. But official records 
make it one of the most interesting in American history. 



826 LIFE AND TIMES OF 



CHAPTE)R XVIII. 

THE GALLANT DEFENSE OF FORT BOWYER THE DEFEAT 

OF THE BRITISH ON LAND AND WATER ITS EFFECTS 

FAR-REACHING, EVEN INFLUENCING THE REASONABLE 

TERMS OF THE TREATY OF GHENT THE SUCCESSFUL 

ATTACK ON PENSACOLA JACKSON^S EXPRESSED 

WILLINGNESS TO PERSONALLY BEAR THE POSSIBLE 
DISAPPROVAL OF HIS TARDY GOVERNMENT. 

THE report made by the gallant defender of Fort 
Bowyer and the report made by General Jackson to 
the Secretary of War, as shown in the last chapter, 
in no sense fill up the measure of historic research of a 
period greatly neglected in American history, but laden with 
living issues. Some of the biographies of General Jackson 
give this great event but a passing notice. It is due to his- 
tory, as well as to the immortal hero, whose genius in war 
was as wide as the horoscope, to show fully what estimate 
General Jackson put on the defense of Mobile Bay, which, 
if at all, had to be defended at the entrance, where stood the 
old dilapidated Spanish Fort Bowyer. 

As rapidly as possible, after he closed up the Creek cam- 
paign at Fort Jackson by making the treaty, he com- 
menced to repair this old fort. From the movements of 
Captain Percy at Pensacola, and the impudence of Colonel 
Nichols in handling the Indians and runaway negroes, and 
the great advantage in a strategic point of view which Mobile 
would be to the British, General Jackson became satisfied he 
had before him a work of vast moment at the Bowyer ; for 
if Mobile could not be defended at the entrance of the bay it 
could not be at all. General Jackson impressed upon 



ANDREW JACKSON. 227 

Major Lawrence and the men under him that Fort Bowyer 
must be defended, or the campaign would be a failure. It 
must be defended, he said, or the Creek campaign would 
bring no results. While the fort was being repaired, 
Jackson had put into its defense Maj. William Lawrence, of 
the Second Regiment, as gallant a soldier as ever stood by 
a gun, with i6o men under him, scarcely one of whom had 
ever been seriously on trial. The command was made up 
of a few regulars, and such forces as Jackson had been able 
to organize while waiting Coffee's and Carroll's return. 

While Jackson found nothing in the fort but some old 
cannon and cannon balls, there was, it seemed, always a 
magic in his genius that met every emergency, and when 
the British ships from Pensacola came in sight Jackson had 
supplied all the ammunition needed, and on that day Jack- 
son was back in Mobile sending out a schooner with rein- 
forcements. This force did not reach the fort, for the whole 
was a scene of fire, and the schooner retired to a safe place 
and waited events. 

Little attention as has been paid to this battle, and little 
as the American people know about it, it was one of the 
most important in our history, and was one of the most ter- 
rific and courageous fights in which Americans ever partici- 
pated. It was September 12, when, as Jackson had antici- 
pated, both a land and naval force made an attack. The 
fort had no bomb proof, and mounted but two 24-pounders, 
six i2-pounders, and twelve smaller pieces, and it was over- 
looked by some tall hills. 

Early in the day of the 12th it was seen that a force under 
Colonel Nichols had landed on the peninsula and was moving 
into position. It consisted of 130 marines and 600 Indians. 
Later in the day four British vessels of war hove in sight, 
dropped down towards the fort, and cast anchor. These 
turned out to be the Hermes, Captain Percy, twenty-two 
guns; the Sophie in command of Captain Lockyer, 18 guns; 



228 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

the Carron, 20 guns; and the Chilers, 18 guns. The whole 
was under command of Captain Percy, a brave officer and 
tried soldier. 

From the 12th to the 15th the warships remained at an- 
chor, with little stir save some land reconnoissance, but on 
the morning of the 15th as the fog cleared away all was 
astir, and Major Lawrence saw the time had come; then 
it was that in good soldier style he called his men around 
him, and with warm greetings every man pledged every 
other man that he would be there when the fort was shot 
away, dead or alive. The watchword was: "Don't you 
give up the fort." 

Early in the day the ships weighed anchor and stood out 
to sea, and as soon as the breeze was favorable Captain Percy, 
leading the squadron, with the courage of a Nelson, ran the 
Hermes right into the narrow channel that leads into the 
bay and dropped anchor within musket shot of the fort, 
and turned its broadside to the guns. The other ships of 
war followed the example of the Hermes, and all anchored 
in the channel within reach of the fort's guns. From the 
very start the cannonading shook the earth. One single 
broadside from the southern wing of the fort into Nichol's 
camp of Indians, who were to do the land fighting, was 
enough to keep them behind the hills. Jackson was back 
in Mobile improvising material and men to reinforce the 
fort when the battle commenced. No man ever spent a day 
of deeper anxiety. 

This wonderful display of amphibious genius in war by 
the great American Irishman fighting a battle on the sea, is 
emphasized by American book makers, leaving it without a 
name and so overshadowed by the glory of New Orleans 
soon after, that its place in our history is still in the musty 
records at Washington. 

I take the liberty of naming it the "Battle of Fort 
Bowyer." 



ANDREW JACKSON. 229 

Fearing, which turned out to be true, that the recruits he 
sent out in the morning had not reached the fort before the 
battle commenced, and knowing the inexperience of many 
of his men and the powerful odds against them, he could 
but feel the greatest anxiety. The battle raged till in the 
night, when a great explosion took place that shook the 
ground even up to Mobile. It was at once said the British 
had blown up the fort. While Jackson was not willing to 
admit this, there came upon him one of those fits of courage 
and confidence which never belonged to any other man. 
He said : "If they have blown up the fort we can't give up 
Mobile ; we can only defend it at the entrance of the bay" ; 
and before day he had improvised a command, seized a 
schooner, and was on his way down to the entrance to meet 
whatever there might be there. This was Jackson-like. 
He had said to lose Mobile was to make the Creek campaign 
a failure, and to defeat all his plans for the future. 

Going down the bay, he met Major Lawrence's express 
and heard the news. Instead of the fort being blown up, 
Lawrence and his men by well-directed shots had blown up 
the Hermes and sunk her, and had literally shot to pieces all 
the other ships, and they had gone limping back to Pensa- 
cola. So Captain Percy had gone back minus his great ship ; 
Colonel Nichols had gone back minus one eye; they had 
carried back seventy-two of their command dead and 
wounded, and the Indians had been left in the woods, like 
wild hogs, to take care of themselves as best they could. 

In the fort, with the exception of four men killed and four 
wounded, every man was standing to his gun. Two of 
the guns in the fort had been injured, and others had been 
disabled. The entire fort had been literally shot to pieces, 
but not one man had flinched. More than three hundred 
cannon balls had struck the fort. Two guns had been 
cracked and two shot of¥ the carriages, while only twelve 
pieces had been brought into action. The stock of ammu- 



230 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

nition showed that seven hundred cannon balls had been 
fired at the ships, and so completely was the Hermes shot 
to pieces that Captain Percy had great difficulty in transfer- 
ring" his wounded to the Sophie, which was so crippled that 
she barely limped away and got out of the reach of the 
guns in the fort. 

The significance of the great victory at Mobile may not 
be readily perceived. Its place in history can only be ap- 
preciated by its environments. It was the first battle ever 
fought by the British in what is known as the great South- 
west. A few troops from the Southwest fought at King's 
Mountain, but the battle was east of the mountain. In the 
second place, it was the first victory gained by a land force 
over the British, though the war had been raging for more 
than two years. In the third place, fought on the 15th of 
September, the news reached Europe in time to have its 
effect in the making of the treaty at Ghent. The entire 
loss of the Creek Nation as an ally, caused by a backwoods- 
general whose genus homo had hardly been discovered, 
but who turned out to be, when he came to the water, a 
sort of amphibious fighter, waked up the other side to what 
was going on in the South, namely, a real struggle for free- 
dom under a great leader, for, indeed, it was Jackson who 
made the treaty of Ghent with reasonable terms possible. 

But lastly and mainly, it was the opening gun of the 
short, decisive struggle between Great Britain on one side 
and a section of the United States, the Southwest, in which 
was developed the most marvelous heroism in defense 
of liberty at home when invaded by hostile foes that 
had been seen. Of course I do not have reference 
alone to the fighting quality exhibited by the men of 
the Southwest, but, as well, a prompt readiness to make any 
sacrifice and meet the enemy with alacrity and cheerful- 
ness, though to the intelligent man who weighs all the facts 
the fatal end was almost as visible as was the end to the 



ANDREW JACKSON. 231 

Spartans who died at Thermopolae. The conditions at 
the time Jackson made the fight for the defense of Mobile 
made success over the British in the final struggle only a 
few weeks off at most — a madman's dream with any other 
man than Andrew Jackson. 

One of the sorest trials that ever came to Jackson's active, 
impetuous life happened during the six weeks after the vic- 
tory at Fort Bowyer. He had been made a Major General 
in the United States Army, but so much was the Govern- 
ment concerned about defending the cities on the Northern 
frontier, where everything was in favor of the British, and 
where our soldiers seemed wholly unable to contend with a 
trained army, that literally no attention was paid to General 
Jackson, and, indeed, no steps whatever were taken to give 
him an army. This is passing strange, when we turn back 
and look at the letters already published in these sketches 
from Mr. Gallatin and others of our ministers in Europe, 
all showing that, the French war having closed by the 
capitulation of Napoleon, the strength of the British army 
was to be employed in the South — the North, as England 
regarded it, having already been conquered. 

Finding himself in this condition, a major general with- 
out an army, the government of Great Britain using a 
friendly power as an ally, and his own Government refusing 
to tell him what to do, he had ordered his two trusted gen- 
erals. Coffee and Carroll, back to Tennessee to raise a third 
army. Where the enemy might come, when he would 
strike, the murmuring waves of the sea would not tell. 
Scouts were of no avail. He could put on a bold front 
with the treacherous Spaniards at Pensacola and say, "Any 
further correspondence will be at the mouth of my cannon," 
and with a few men at the old fort in Mobile Bay he could 
sink a British ship; but if the British had only known at 
this time what a skeleton of an army this backwoods general 



232 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

had behind him, the campaign would have been all that 
England desired. 

It was during these awful days of waiting that the cele- 
brated Jean Lafitte papers came to light. Lafitte had long 
been regarded as the "pirate of the gulf seas." Forty miles 
directly south of New Orleans is Grand Terra, in which is 
the little village of Barrataria, the pirate's home. The 
British sent a ship to the "home of the pirates," and con- 
tracted an alliance with the leader. They made known to 
him their plans, offering him a large sum of money, all of 
which Lafitte agreed to, and got possession of their papers 
with which to form alliances with the Indians and destroy 
the towns of the coast, ascend the Mississippi River and 
destroy the country on both sides, and finally meet the army 
from the Canada line, and thus overrun the entire country. 
While Lafitte had had the reputation of being a pirate, he 
was a loyal American. He immediately bundled up all the 
documents and sent them to New Orleans to Governor 
Claiborne. 

This startled the officials who were consulted. A wide 
difference of opinion arose as to the honesty of Lafitte's dis- 
closure. The facts were all published. Edward Livingston, 
who knew Lafitte, believed the papers were genuine, and 
that Lafitte was loyal, as it afterwards turned out he was. 

On October 6th an express reached General Jackson, 
informing him that General Coffee, with 2,800 Tennesseans, 
had arrived on the Mobile River. General Jackson imme- 
diately took command, having long since dicided on his 
course. He dismounted 1,000 men who had entered the 
service as cavalry, but who heartily said, "What General 
Jackson says is law." The horses were put out on the cane, 
and by pledging his personal credit he provided eight days' 
rations, and got ready for the move in a remarkably short 
time with the 2,800 Tennesseans and such troops as he had 
at Mobile, making in all 3,000 men. 



ANDREW JACKSON. 233 

On November 3d he moved his army out of Mobile and 
in the direction of Pensacola. On the 6th he captured the 
city, and on the 7th his army was headed for New Orleans, 
but this is no intelhgent sketch of what took place. While 
General Jackson had decided on his course in reference to 
invading with an army the territory of a friendly power, 
when his own Government refused to tell him what to do, 
he had fully determined to take the responsibility and stand 
all the punishment that might come to him, giving the 
Government the opportunity, if it saw proper, to protect 
itself behind his assumption of authority. Mr. Eaton says 
General Jackson had fully considered this, and made up 
his mind that his own punishment was the worst that could 
come out of it. 

General Jackson had a way of doing rash things with 
great prudence. So, on reaching Pensacola, he stopped on 
the outside and sent a trusted soldier, under a flag of truce, 
to the Governor. This officer, who was fired on, returned. 
The British being in the town and having possession of the 
forts, General Jackson concluded possibly the Spanish Gov- 
ernor might be practically under duress, and again sent a 
messenger, setting out with great particularity his purpose ; 
that he meant no unfriendly act to Spain, but demanding 
the surrender of the forts, which would be restored when 
conditions justified it; that it was the base of supplies for 
the British, and that they were arming the Indians, and, 
therefore, he demanded surrender of the place. 

In all General Jackson's military history there is nothing 
more Jacksonian than two expressions connected with this 
campaign. When he moved the army, his order to Coffee 
was : "Rout the British out of Pensacola!" And when the 
refusal to surrender the forts came back, his order was : 
"Turn out the soldiers." When the soldiers were turned 
out, he moved down the streets, attacking the fortifications 
and capturing them as he came to them. He had about 



234 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

twenty men wounded, none fatally. Captain Lovel, one 
of Jackson's best officers, was dangerously wounded while 
leading his men against the fortifications. 

In less than six hours from the time Jackson ordered the 
soldiers "turned out," he had captured the fortifications of 
the city, had driven the ships out of the bay, had the British 
blowing up the Barancas and the other forts, their supplies 
all destroyed, and every Britain seeking the protection of the 
Gulf of Mexico. The day's work was only half over when 
the Spanish Governor was out on the streets begging to see 
General ^Jackson, that he might surrender the city, protest- 
ing in the most solemn manner that he was not responsible. 
He promptly turned over the city, with the forts, putting 
all in the hands of General Jackson, but soon thereafter the 
main fort, Barancas, was blown up and abandoned by the 
British. 

It is a matter of history that, some weeks afterwards, the 
British made an offer to the Governor to repair the forts 
they had destroyed on leaving, but he said that if he needed 
any assistance he was going to call on General Jackson. 
After seeing what they saw at Fort Bowyer, and then at 
Pensacola, the Indians disappeared, and showed no further 
disposition to ally themselves with the British. 




MILL'S STATUE OF ANDREW JACKSON, 

WASHINGTON. NASHVI LUE. AND NEW ORLEANS. 



ANDREW JACKSON. 235 



CHAPTER XIX. 

THE MOST COMPLETE, POWERFUL AND HITHERTO SUCCESS- 
FUL NAVAL FORCE THAT GREAT BRITAIN COULD 

FURNISH PREPARED TO ATTACK NEW ORLEANS THE 

MIXED POPULATION OF THE CITY OFFER NO AID TO 
JACKSON UNTIL HIS POWERFUL APPEAL RECONCILES 

THE DISAFFECTED ELEMENTS THE VICTORY AT NEW 

ORLEANS ONLY MADE POSSIBLE BY THE TENNESSEE 
TROOPS. 

THE rendezvous of the British fleet in Negril Bay, at 
the western end of the Island of Jamaica, brought 
together, about November 4, 1814, the armament, 
the land and naval forces with which New Orleans was to 
be captured and the South subjugated. 

To properly estimate the service rendered his country by 
General Jackson, the organized forces approaching our 
shores must be seen. Fortunately for American history, 
and that final justice, though at a late day, may be done the 
defender of New Orleans, England has furnished full and 
complete information as to the armament which he had to 
contend with. An English writer, known as the "Sub- 
altern," wrote up the campaign of 181 3 against Washing- 
ton, and the campaign of 18 14-15 against New Orleans, 
and for his careful, painstaking report of these campaigns 
he was complimented by Lord Wellington. 

From him the following facts have been gathered : 

"It was the rendezvous of the British fleet designed for 
the capture of New Orleans. The day just named was the 
one appointed for its final inspection and review, previous 
to its departure for Lake Borgne. A fleet of fifty armed 



236 ' LIFE AND TIMES OF 

vessels, many of them of the first magnitude, covered the 
waters of the bay. There lay the huge Tonnant of eighty 
guns, one of Nelson's prizes at the battle of the Nile, now 
exhibiting the pennant of Sir Alexander Cockrane, the 
Admiral in command of this imposing fleet. Rear Admiral 
Sir Edward Codrington was also on board the Tonnant, 
a name of renown in the naval history of England. There 
was the Royal Oak, a seventy-four, the ship of Rear Admiral 
Malcolm ; four other seventy-fours, the Norge, the Bedford, 
the Asia, the Raniilies, formed part of the fleet, the last 
named in command of Sir Thomas Hardy, the beloved of 
Nelson, to whom the dying hero gasped those immortal 
words, "Kiss me, Hardy ; I die content." There, too, were 
the Dictator, of fifty guns ; the Gorgon, of forty-four ; the 
Annide, of thirty-eight, commanded by Sir Thomas Trow- 
bridge, of famous memory; the Seashore, of thirty-five, 
under Capt. James Alexander Gordon, late the terror of the 
Potomac ; the Belle Poule, of thirty-eight, a ship of fame. 
Nine other ships, mounting thirty-eight, thirty-six, and 
thirty-two guns ; five smaller vessels, each carrying sixteen 
guns ; three bomb craft and eleven transports, completed the 
formidable catalogue. Nor were these all the vessels des- 
tined to take part in the enterprise. A fleet from Bordeaux 
was still on the ocean to join the expedition at the entrance 
of Lake Borgne, where, also, Captain Percy's squadron 
from Pensacola, with Nichols and the brave Captain Lock- 
yer, were to effect a junction. And yet other vessels, direct 
from England, with the general appointed to command the 
army, were expected. 

"The decks of the ships in Negril Bay were crowded with 
red-coated soldiers. The four regiments, numbering, with 
their sappers and artillerymen, 3,100 men, who had fought 
the battle of Bladensburg, burnt the public buildings of 
Washington, and lost their general near Baltimore the 
summer before, were on board the fleet. Four regiments, 
under General Keine, had come from England direct to 
reinforce this army. Two regiments, composed in part of 
negro troops, supposed to be peculiarly adapted to the 
climate of New Orleans, had been drawn from the West 
Indies to join the expedition. The fleet could furnish, if 
required, a body of 1,500 marines. General Keine found 



ANDREW JACKSON. 237 

himself, on his arrival from Plymouth, in command of an 
army of 7,450 men, which the marines of the fleet could 
swell to 8,950. The number of sailors could scarcely have 
been less than 10,000, of whom a large proportion could, 
and did, assist in the operations contemplated." 

Here was a force of nearly twenty thousand men, a fleet 
of fifty ships, carrying 1,000 gims, and perfectly appointed 
in every particular, commanded by officers, some of whom 
had grown gray in victory. 

The greater part of General Keine's army was fresh from 
the Peninsula, and had been led by victorious Wellington 
into France, to behold and share in that final triumph of 
British arms. To these Peninsula heroes were added the 
Ninety-third Highlanders, recently from the Cape of Good 
Hope — one of the "praying regiments" of the British 
Army — as stalwart, as brave, as completely appointed a 
body of men as had stood in arms since Cromwell's Iron- 
sides gave liberty and greatness to England. Indeed, there 
was not a regiment of those which had come from England 
to form this army which had not won brilliant distinction 
in strongly-contested fields. The elite of England's army 
and navy were afloat in Negril Bay on that bright day of 
November, when the last review took place. 

Here was a fighting force, army and navy, more imposing 
and more thoroughly equipped than had at any time, in 
either the Revolutionary War or the then existing war, 
ever approached the American continent. It was a force 
of about 20,000 men, about one-half of which could be used 
as a part of the land forces, though they belonged to the 
navy. In the command were not only the most eminent 
soldiers and naval officers England had at that time, but 
most of the soldiers had distinguished themselves in the long 
war with France, which had just closed. And in that army 
were many of the soldiers who had the year before gained 
victory after victory over our troops along the Canada line, 



238 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

and who had captured Washington and destroyed the pubHc 
buildings; then there was a large amount of sentiment. 
The great Tonnant, the prize captured by Nelson in the 
battle of the Nile, with her eighty guns, was a part of the 
fleet, and Sir Thomas Hardy, the beloved of Nelson, was in 
command of one of the ships. Nothing in the way of a land 
and naval force so imposing had ever crossed the Atlantic. 
The "Subaltern" made the following statement about this 
fleet: 

*'No man appeared to regard the present, whilst every 
one looked forward to the future. From the general down 
to the youngest drummer boy, a confident anticipation of 
success seemed to pervade all ranks, and in the hope of an 
ample reward in store for them the toils and grievances of 
the moment were forgotten. Nor was this anticipation the 
mere offspring of an overweening confidence in themselves. 
Several Americans had already deserted, who entertained 
us with accounts of the alarm experienced at New Orleans. 
They assured us that there were not present 5,000 soldiers 
in the State ; that the principal inhabitants had long ago left 
the place; that such as remained were ready to join us as 
soon as we should appear among them ; and that, therefore, 
we might lay our account with a speedy and bloodless con- 
quest. The same persons likewise dilated upon the wealth 
and importance of the town, upon the large quantities of 
Government stores there collected, and the rich booty which 
would reward its captors — subjects well calculated to tickle 
the fancy of invaders and to make them unmindful of imme- 
diate afflictions, in the expectation of so great a recompense 
to come. 

"It is well known that at the period to which my narrative 
refers, an alliance, offensive and defensive, subsisted between 
the government of Great Britain and the heads of as many 
Indian nations, or tribes, as felt the aggressions of the set- 
tlers upon their ancient territories, and were disposed to 
resent them. On this side of the continent our principal 
allies were the Choctaws and Cherokees, two nations whom 
war and famine had reduced from a state of comparative 
majesty to the lowest ebb of feebleness and distress. Driven 



ANDREW JACKSON. 239 

from hunting-ground to hunting-ground, and pursued hke 
wild beasts wherever seen, they were now confined to a 
narrow tract of country, lying chiefly along the coast of the 
gulf and the borders of the lakes which adjoin it. For some 
time previous to the arrival of the expedition, the warriors 
of these tribes put themselves under the command of Colonel 
Nichols, of the Royal Marines, and continued to harass the 
Americans by frequent incursions into the cultivated dis- 
tricts. It so happened, however, that being persuaded to 
attempt the reduction of a fort situated upon Mobile Point, 
and being, as might be expected, repulsed with some loss, 
their confidence in their leader and their dependence upon 
British aid had begun of late to suffer a serious diminution. 
Though not very profitable as friends, their local position 
and desultory mode of warfare would have rendered them 
at this period exceedingly annoying to us as enemies ; it was 
accordingly determined to dispatch an embassy to their 
settlements for the purpose of restoring them to good 
humor, or at least discovering their intentions." 

General Jackson, in person, reached New Orleans on the 
2d of December, and to meet and contend with this powerful 
force the troops in or near New Orleans, and its sole defend- 
ers as late as the middle of December, were these : Two half- 
filled, newly raised regiments of regular troops, numbering 
about 800 men; Major Planche^s high-spirited battalion of 
uniformed volunteers, about 500 in number; two regiments 
of State Militia, badly equipped, some of them armed with 
fowling pieces, others with muskets, others with rifles, some 
without arms, all imperfectly disciplined ; a battalion of free 
men of color; the whole amounting to about 2,000 men. 
Two vessels of war lay at anchor in the river, the immortal 
little schooner Carolina and the ship Louisiana, neither of 
them manned, and no one dreaming of what importance 
they were to prove. Commodore Patterson and a few other 
naval officers were in the city, ready when the hour should 
come, and, indeed, already rendering yeoman's service in 
many capacities. 



240 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

The biographers of General Jackson and other historians 
have disagreed as to the condition of the population at New- 
Orleans when Jackson got there. Mr. Waldo, I think, gives 
the best account, and I make the following extracts : 

"Jackson arrived at this place upon the 2d of December, 
1814. A mere casuist may wonder why the presence of a 
single individual at an exposed place is an augury of its 
safety; but it is in vain for casuists, philosophers, or stoics 
to laugh at a sentiment that is common to our nature. The 
presence of Washington at Trenton, and of Putnam at 
Bunker's Hill, had the same effect upon citizens and soldiers 
as that of Jackson at New Orleans. 

"At no period since the declaration of American Inde- 
pendence in July, 1776, to December, 1814, had an Ameri- 
can commander a duty of more importance and difficulty to 
discharge than had General Jackson at this portentious 
period. At Mobile, with means apparently wholly insuffi- 
cient (to use his own language), he had *a sickly climate as 
well as an enemy to contend with.' At New Orleans he 
had to contend with the consternation of the citizens, the 
insolence of judicial power, and the timorous policy of the 
Legislature of Louisiana, as well as against the most pow- 
erful land and naval force that had for forty years menaced 
any one place in the republic. He had also to contend with 
the prejudice, the favoritism, and the perfidiousness of 
foreigners, a vast number of whom had migrated to Louis- 
iana before its accession to the republic by Mr. Monroe's 
treaty. 

"Although the proclamation of Nichols excites in the 
mind of an intelligent American reader no feeling but that 
of ineffable contempt, yet with the mixed population of 
Louisiana its effects might be essentially different. Although 
among that population were many native Americans of dis- 
tinguished talents and patriotism, it is without a doubt the 
fact that in 1814 a majority of its inhabitants were of for- 
eign extraction, and that much of the most numerous class 
of foreigners were Frenchmen. They saw the same for- 
midable power that had recently taken the lead in conquering 
the conqueror of Europe, driving him into exile, and restor- 
ing Louis XVni to the French throne, now menacing 



ANDREW JACKSON. 241 

Louisiana with a force that seemed to be irresistible. Span- 
iards in the same power recognized the restorer of Ferdinand 
VII. Englishmen dared not take up arms against their 
own countrymen unless certain of victory. General Jackson 
was aware that in this discordant mass of people there would 
be many who would not only neglect to repair to the Ameri- 
can standard, but who would give aid and comfort to the 
enemy. He was also aware that energetic and coercive 
measures to detect domestic traitors, or to conquer a power- 
ful foe, would meet with resistance from that undefined and 
frequently unrestrained spirit of liberty which foreigners, 
recently settled in the republic, almost invariably manifest. 
But it was in vain for him to wish for a different state of 
things, or to pursue a course of conduct which a different 
state would have rendered judicious and expedient. He 
was compelled to act as circumstances dictated, without the 
power of changing them. Like a great man in danger, 
described by a great poet, with elegance, 'Serene and master 
of himself, he prepared for what might come, and left the 
rest to heaven.' " 

In General Coffee and General Carroll, and the gallant 
men who he knew would follow him to victory or to death, 
he could recognize officers and soldiers who would cheerfully 
unite with him and the small regular force he had under his 
command at New Orleans. 

It was still, however, wholly uncertain how soon an effect- 
ive force, which would give any hopes of a successful 
defense of the place, would arrive. 

General Jackson addressed the citizens and soldiers of 
Louisiana in the following impressive manner : 

"Natives of the United States: The enemy you are to 
contend with are the oppressors of your infant political 
existence; they are the men your fathers fought and con- 
quered, whom you are now to oppose. 

"Descendants of Frenchmen ! Natives of France! They 
are English — the hereditary, the eternal enemies of your 
ancient country, the invaders of that you have adopted, who 
are your foes. Spaniards, remember the conduct of your 

16 



242 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

allies at St. Sebastain, and recently at Pensacola, and rejoice 
that you have an opportunity of avenging the brutal injuries 
inflicted by men who dishonor the human race. Louisian- 
ians, your General rejoices to witness the spirit that animates 
you, not only for your honor, but your safety ; for whatever 
had been your conduct or wishes, his duty would have led, 
and yet will lead, him to confound the citizen, unmindful of 
his rights with the enemy he ceases. Commanding men 
who know their rights and are determined to defend them, 
he saluted you as brethren in arms; and has now a new 
motive to exert all his faculties, which shall be strained to 
the utmost in your defense. 

"Continue with the energy you have begun, and he prom- 
ises you not only safety, but victory over an insolent foe, 
who has insulted you by an affected doubt of your attach- 
ment to the Constitution of your country. Your enemy is 
near ; his sails already cover the lakes ; but the brave are 
united; and if he finds us contending among ourselves it 
will be for the prize of valor and fame, its noblest reward." 

Considering the nature of the people, and of the troops he 
had to address, it is difficult to perceive of an appeal more 
appropriate. The native Americans are pointed to "the 
oppressors of their infant political existence" ; the natives 
of France to the "eternal enemy of their ancient country, 
the invaders of the one they had adopted" ; Spaniards, too, 
are reminded of "the brutal injuries inflicted" upon their 
country "by men who dishonor the human race." 

The disaffection of the few is easily checked when the 
public functionaries discharge the necessary duties devolved 
upon them; but so far were the legislative and judiciary 
powers of the State from calling in the power of law to 
check the growing discontent, that they encouraged it by 
conniving at it. Governor Claiborne did everything which 
a patriotic and vigilant executive could do; but a majority 
of the Legislature, nerveless, timorous, and desponding, 
hung upon him like an incubus, and paralyzed all his 
exertions. In regard to this House of Assembly the 



ANDREW JACKSON. 243 

Governor might have said, "Mine enemies are those of my 
household." 

From the poHce of the city of New Orleans no more hopes 
could be derived than from the majority of the Legislature 
of the State; and some of its inhabitants were carrying on 
a treacherous intercourse with the enemy. The writer 
would not have so confidently stated the facts contained in 
this chapter unless he had in his possession indubitable 
evidence of their accuracy. From the mass of testimony, 
the following is selected from the correspondence between 
Governor Claiborne and General Jackson. In one letter the 
Governor says : 

"On a late occasion I had the mortification to acknowl- 
edge my inability to meet a requisition from General 
Flournoy, the corps of this city having for the most part 
resisted my orders, being encouraged in their disobedience 
by the Legislature of the State, then in session, one branch 
of which, the Senate, having declared the requisition illegal 
and oppressive, and the House of Representatives having 
rejected a proposition to approve the measure. How far I 
shall be supported in my late orders remains yet to be 
proved. I have reason to calculate upon the patriotism of 
the interior and western counties. I know, also, that there 
are many faithful citizens in New Orleans; but there are 
others, in whose attachment to the United States I ought 
not to confide. Upon the whole, sir, I cannot disguise the 
fact that if Louisiana should be attacked, we must princi- 
pally depend for security upon the prompt movements of 
the regular force under your command and the militia of the 
Western States and Territories. In this movement we are 
in a very unprepared and defenseless condition; several 
important points of defense remain unoccupied, and, in case 
of a sudden attack, this capital would, I fear, fall an easy 
sacrifice." 

In another letter he says : 

"I was on the point of taking on myself the prohibition 
of the trade with Pensacola ; I had prepared a proclamation 



244 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

to that effect, and would have issued it the very day I heard 
of your interposition. Enemies to the country may blame 
you for your prompt and energetic measures, but in the 
person of every patriot you will find a supporter. I am very 
confident of the very lax police of this city, and, indeed, 
throughout the State, with respect to the visits of strangers. 
I think, with you, that our country is filled with spies and 
traitors. I have written pressingly on the subject to the 
city authorities and parish judges; I hope some efficient 
regulations will speedily be adopted by the first, and more 
vigilance exerted for the future by the latter." 

I have carefully and with some labor and research col- 
lected the facts in this article, with a view and for the pur- 
pose of giving to an interested public, whether now or in the 
remote future, the part played by Tennessee at the most 
critical period in American history. 

From English history I have collected the facts, showing 
that the most thoroughly equipped land and naval force that 
England could command was approaching the Delta when 
Jackson reached New Orleans — a land and naval force that 
had taken part in all England's wars of recent date, includ- 
ing Nelson's great victory over the French in the battle of 
the Nile and at Trafalgar, and including the then recent 
campaigns of Wellington — and also the flower of the army 
that had but recently captured Washington and beaten our 
armies in all the battles of the North from Detroit to 
Bladensburg. 

And then I have shown from the most reliable and 
authentic sources that when Jackson reached New Orleans 
on horseback, he had a force hardly sufficient to police the 
city, with a large part of the city disloyal, the Legislature 
timid and unwilling to aid the loyal Governor in his prepara- 
tion to defend the city, a police not to be trusted, and even 
judges that were jealous and standing on their technical 
rights, while the British army approached the city to take 
away all rights. 



ANDREW JACKSON. 245 

With these facts staring him in the face, what had General 
Jackson to look to? He had but one resource. He had 
5,300 Tennesseans on the way to New Orleans. Two 
thousand eight hundred of them under General Coffee had 
made a forced march across the wilderness, a distance of 
450 miles, and reached Mobile a few days before, and had 
gone immediately to Pensacola, had captured the fortifica- 
tions, and had driven the British out of the bay, and were 
now following General Jackson, who had gone ahead to 
New Orleans. 

The other 2,500 had built boats on the Cumberland, and 
by the almost mysterious blessing of heaven there came a 
great flood early in November, and these 2,500 men under 
General Carroll were floating down the Mississippi River 
when Jackson reached New Orleans. 

I have said the great victory over the British at New 

Orleans was the turning point in the most critical part of 

American history. Qualifying that, I wish to say that the 

-^/"Creek campaign, the victory at Mobile Bay, and the victory 

v at Pensacola, made the victory at New Orleans possible by 

// Tennessee soldiers, and the Creek campaign had enabled our 

commissioners at Ghent to get terms which they could afiford 

to accept. The battle of New Orleans came at a time when 

the citizen soldier quality was at the greatest discount. 

All New England was clamoring for peace on any terms. 
Victory after victory over our army had greatly discouraged 
our own Government ; so much so, that with full knowledge 
of the purpose of England to concentrate her forces on the 
South, not a soldier could be sent to Jackson. 

It was at a time, too, when the British press and people 
were heaping ridicule upon us as a nation of cowards. Sev- 
eral of these offensive diatribes I published in a former 
chapter. 
fV The battle of New Orleans put a new face on the fighting 
// quality of citizen soldiers; it made volunteer service the 



246 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

pride of the American people ; it made a glorious ending of 
the War of 1812, instead of a war with nothing but disaster. 

It was a daring and courageous running up of the Ameri- 
can flag, with a notice that we are able to defend the republic 
and that our flag must be respected. This great victory 
over the British, one of three great disasters that England 
admits as coming to her arms, I am going to show is a 
Tennessee victory, and that Tennessee skill and courage 
saved the honor of the nation. This in no sense is intended 
to reflect upon troops of other States, if they had been there. 

England always believed the final overthrow of her arms 
and the surrender of Cornwallis was due to treachery at 
home. And for many years before the War of 1812 the 
Government was bullying and the press was blackguarding 
the United States. 

Up to the close of the war, England had hundreds of our 
soldiers in prison — Englishmen who had been naturalized — 
threatening to send them back to England to be tried and 
hanged for treason. This was what we were fighting about 
— the right to search our ships and seize our soldiers who 
had once been Englishmen. On this point nothing was 
yielded in the treaty of Ghent. By the battle of New 
Orleans, Jackson put it in the treaty in a more enduring 
form than if it had been written. 



ANDREW JACKSON. 247 



CHAPTER XX. 

JACKSON REACHES NEW ORLEANS CARROLL AND COFFEE 

COMING WITH FIVE THOUSAND THREE HUNDRED TEN- 

NESSEANS — Jackson's presence in new Orleans 

INSPIRES CONFIDENCE HOW HE DEALT WITH THE 

DELAYED ELEMENTS MARTIAL LAW. 

WHEN General Jackson arrived at New Orleans, 
December 2, 18 14, riding horseback from 
Mobile, he was in feeble health. He had 
never seen a well day from the time he left his surgeons, 
in September, 181 3, getting out of bed to take command 
of the army. The wounds he had received in the fight 
with the Bentons were most serious — so serious that 
throughout the Creek campaign, the Mobile and Pensacola 
campaigns, and down to the time he reached New Orleans, 
his arm was kept in a sling. His exposure with these 
wounds in the winter campaign, and the lack of whole- 
some food during the war in the wilderness against the 
Indians, had brought on a disease, chronic diarrhea, from 
which he never recovered. 

The public sentiment, the feelings of loyalty or disloyalty 
of the people at New Orleans at the time Jackson reached 
there is sharply in issue by his biographers. Mr. Parton 
denies the disloyalty of the citizens of New Orleans, and 
says they were misrepresented by Governor Claiborne, and 
that the disaffection of the Legislature grew out of an old 
feud between the Governor and the Legislature because the 
Governor some years before had opposed Burr in his cele- 
brated expedition. 

This is an important matter, and, whether Parton in- 



248 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

tended it as one of his many thrusts at Jackson, it is cer- 
tain that, if true, it weakens the defense made by Jackson 
and his friends for declaring martial law, and for the 
arrest and imprisonment of Hall, and for his having Gov- 
ernor Claiborne to keep a watch on the Legislature to see 
that it did not surrender the city. 

In the last preceding chapter I gave a lengthy extract 
from one of the biographies of General Jackson, that of 
Mr. Waldo. Mr. Waldo was a man of high character, and 
seemingly a careful and painstaking writer. His showing 
of the condition of New Orleans when General Jackson 
got there is full and complete, giving not only the facts 
as he collected them, but publishing a number of Governor 
Claiborne's letters to General Jackson, showing the alarm- 
ing condition of affairs as to loyalty on the approach of 
an enemy. Mr. Waldo wrote in 1817, only two years 
after the incident of which he writes. 

Eaton wrote a book; Reid commenced it, and Eaton 
finished it in 1818. 

Eaton's "Life of Jackson" shows the necessity for mar- 
tial law. Parton claims there was no need of it. The ar- 
guments for and against are too lengthy for the space 
allotted. 

That the Legislature, the police force, and the foreign 
element were dangerous, and excited in the mind of Gen- 
eral Jackson the deepest apprehension and justified him in 
taking extreme measures, was fully shown by subsequent 
events — not only by the press and by the judge on the 
bench, but by the Legislature. When Jackson returned to 
the city after his great victory, and after driving the British 
down to the coast, the Legislature passed resolutions com- 
mending the officers and soldiers — the officers by name — 
who had done the fighting, without mentioning the name 
of the general in command. They wanted it understood 
that they intended to snub General Jackson. 



ANDREW JACKSON, 249 

The question of martial law will again come under re- 
view in connection with the arrest of Captain Tonaillier, 
the writ of habeas corpus, and the imprisonment of Hall. 

On entering New Orleans, he seemed to be possessed of 
almost superhuman wisdom, and with an energy made 
doubly mysterious by his extreme feebleness. The greatest 
mystery in Jackson's character was his faith, but never 
was it so signally shown as at New Orleans. Mr. Waldo 
is right when he says philosophers and stoics need not 
go to speculating about the effect of a great man's pres- 
ence on the people. This was most marked in the case 
of General Jackson on reaching the city. The first thing 
he did was to accept an invitation to dinner from his old 
friend, Mr. Livingstone, as shown in a former chapter, 
which caused Mrs. Livingstone to exclaim to a number of 
young Creole ladies who were with her that day, "What 
on earth shall we do with this backwoods general," but 
after a dinner and two hours' talk Mrs. Livingstone says 
they all decided he was the most charming gentleman they 
had ever met. 

The dining over. General Jackson and Mr. Livingstone, 
whom he appointed one of his aides, and such engineers 
as could be found in the city, mounted their horses, all in 
readiness, for an inspection of localities. General Jackson 
readily decided that the British gunboats must not be 
allowed to pass Ft. Phillips, an old Spanish fort down the 
river that had been well selected for defense against an 
enemy coming into and ascending the river. The man se- 
lected for the defense of this fort was Maj. W. H. Overton. 
The old fort was rapidly put in condition for storing ammu- 
nition and doing effective work when the enemy undertook 
to pass. 

General Jackson's resources, expedience and foresight in 
preparing to meet great emergencies, including the capacity 
for knowing when they were coming, were never more 



250 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

Strikingly exemplified than in supplying the two old dilapi- 
dated Spanish forts with men and guns at Mobile Bay and 
at the mouth of the Mississippi. 

From the day Jackson arrived until the great battle of 
January 8th, it is doubtful if any general in any country, 
or in any age, in the same time ever did the same amount 
of intelligent and successful work in preparing to fight a 
great battle. It is certain that history furnishes no in- 
stance of such a campaign with such success, accomplished 
with such resources and such disparity in numbers. 

The man who had come to save New Orleans from the 
rapacity and cruelty which had followed the trail of the 
army on the Canadian line, or sacrifice his own life with 
the life of every man who would stand by him to the last 
moment, proceeded at once with an intelligence, a fore- 
sight, and a vigilance perhaps never found in any other 
genera] in preparing for a great battle. He exhausted 
all available resources in getting ready with a small force 
of militia, poorly equipped, with no record behind them 
except as Indian fighters and squirrel hunters, to fight a 
great army of the most renowned soldiers in the world. 
The preparation to fight this battle, coupled with his deliber- 
ately formed purpose as to what he would finally do in a 
certain event, as truly shows his character, perhaps, as any- 
thing in his whole life. While he had made up his mind to 
sacrifice himself and his army or drive the British back to 
sea, and believing that this terrible ordeal might come, he 
determined by herculean effort he would give his soldiers 
the benefit of all the means of defense which skill and labor 
could provide. His genius in war enabled him to deter- 
mine in what way the British army would approach the 
city, and what special moves would be made to break the 
center or flank him. Two things he decided on : First, 
that every available man, citizen, or soldier, who did not 
have a gun or could not be furnished with one, should be 



ANDREW JACKSON. 251 

put to work in strengthening the Hnes of defense; second, 
that the great battle should not be fought until he got 
ready. 

The reader will carefully note the evidence, which goes 
to prove his purpose, that if the British army reached the 
city, it should do it over his dead body, he and his brave 
soldiers sleeping on the same bloody field. 

The victories in the North in 1813 and 18 14 over our 
armies had brought dishonor on a country that he loved 
more than his life ; the vandalism in burning all^ our public 
buildings at Washington, and public records; the general 
massacre at Frenchtown ; the preparation they were making 
to send hundreds of prisoners which they had taken — En- 
glishmen found in our army — back to England to be tried 
for treason and hung, because England in her self-import- 
ance said, "Once an Englishman, always an Englishman." 
But above all, and more than all, Jackson did not intend 
to survive the occupation of the Southland by a people 
whom he intensely hated as a nation of land pirates, whose 
limit to conquest and subjugation of other countries and 
other people was determined alone by the question of big 
guns and great ships. Jackson believed in the freedom of 
all men, and hated England for its subjugation of helpless 
people. 

Theie were other reasons of a personal nature which 
operated on General Jackson through his whole life. The 
great, the oft-told story of Ireland's wrongs at the hands 
of the British nation, was an open book to him. His 
grandfather died at the massacre of Carrickfergus. His 
father and mother fled from Ireland on account of British 
oppression. His two brothers, though mere boys, had 
given up their lives in defense of the country to which they 
had fled, and to which the British had pursued them. One 
of them by personal indignities by British officers, while he 
himself a thirteen-year-old boy, barely escaped with his 



? 



252 LIFE AND TIMES OP 

life. Then he had seen his mother driven into the woods, 
where she was hiding from Lord Rawdon and Colonel 
Tarleton, the illustrious specimens of British nobility in 
command of armies, and finally dying in a hospital. 
Whether this personal matter had anything to do with his 
feelings or not, it certainly never carried him into anything 
beyond the duties and obligations of a soldier. 

About December 14 the news came to General Jackson 
that the British gunboats had captured Commodore Pat- 
terson's entire fleet of six gunboats, and had passed into 
Lake Borgne, and were within a few miles of the city. 
On this news reaching the city, the most intense excite- 
ment and alarm were produced. Never was the supreme 
magnetic power of General Jackson more strikingly shown 
than at this time. To all he said, "Be not alarmed ; I have 
soldiers you have not yet seen ; we will save this city from 
the despoiler ; we will drive him back to the sea." 

While General Jackson had only been in the city then 
twelve days, his very presence was more than confidence 
and his words more than inspiring. Of all the soldiers 
who have reached distinction. General Jackson was the 
greatest pen soldier — no general ever wrote as much — 
and thereby kept himself so much in touch with his army 
and the people he was defending. At this critical moment 
he issued the following proclamation : 

"To the Citizens of New Orleans: — The Major General 
commanding has, with astonishment and regret, learned 
that great consternation and alarm pervade your city. It 
is true the enemy is on our coast and threatens an invasion 
of our territory, but it is equally true, with union, energy, 
and the approbation of heaven, we will beat him at every 
point his temerity may induce him to set foot upon our 
soil. The General, with still greater astonishment, has 
heard that British emissaries have been permitted to propa- 
gate seditious reports among you; that the threatened in- 
vasion is with a view of restoring the country to Spain, 



ANDREW JACKSON. 253 

from a supposition that some would be willing to return to 
your ancient Government. Believe not such incredible 
tales — your Government is at peace with Spain. It is the 
vital enemy of your country, the common enemy of man- 
kind, the highway robber of the world that threatens you, 
and has sent his hirelings among you with false report to 
put you off your guard, that you may fall an easy prey to 
him ; then look to your liberties, your property, the chastity 
of your wives and daughters. Take a retrospect of the 
British army at Hampton and other places, where it has 
entered our country, and every bosom which glows with 
patriotism and virtue will be inspired with indignation, and 
pant for the arrival of the hour when we shall meet and 
revenge those outrages against the laws of civilization and 
humanity. 

"The General calls upon the inhabitants of the i:ity to 
trace this unfounded report to its source, and bring the pro- 
pagator to condign punishment. The rules and articles of 
war annex a punishment of death to any person holding 
secret correspondence with the enemy, creating false 
alarms, or supplying him with provisions; and the General 
announces his unalterable determination rigidly to execute 
the martial law in all cases which may come within his 
province. 

"The safety of the district entrusted to the protection of 
the General must and will be maintained with the best 
blood of the country, and he is confident that all good citi- 
zens will be found at their posts with their arms in their 
hands, determined to dispute every inch of ground with the 
enemy; that unanimity will pervade the country generally; 
but should the General be disappointed in this expectation, 
he will separate our enemies from our friends — those who 
are not for us are against us, and will be dealt with ac- 
cordingly." 

At the time General Jackson issued this proclamation to 
the citizens of New Orleans there was the wildest excite- 
ment in the city, and great danger, apparently, of serious 
trouble. And it was at this time that the question arose 
of martial law. 



254 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

Commodore Patterson suggested to Governor Claiborne 
that the Legislature should suspend the writ of habeas cor- 
pus. The Legislature refused to comply with the Gov- 
ernor's recommendation, but, instead, proceeded to pass 
some laws about salaries, which they foolishly believed 
would be a remedy for the ills in the city. Thereupon 
General Jackson determined to take all power into his own 
hands, and the very day that he issued the proclamation 
he declared martial law. In conversing with Major Eaton 
years afterward he said : 

'T very well knew the extent of my powers, and that it 
was far short of that which necessity and my situation re- 
quired. I determined, therefore, to venture boldly forth 
and pursue a course correspondent to the difficulties that 
pressed upon me. I had an anxious solicitude to wipe off 
the stigma cast upon my country by the destruction of the 
Capitol. If New Orleans were taken, I well knew that 
new difficulties would arise and every effort be made to re- 
tain it; and that if regained, blood and treasure would be 
the sacrifice. My determination, therefore, was formed — 
not to halt at trifles, but to lose the city only at the boldest 
sacrifice, and to omit nothing that could assure success. 
I was well aware that calculating politicians, ignorant of 
the difficulties that surrounded me, would condemn my 
course; but this was not material. What became of me 
was of no consequence. If disaster did come, I expected 
not to survive it ; but if a successful defense could be made, 
I felt assured that my country, in the objects attained, 
would lose sight of and forget the means that had been 
employed." 

Martial law was declared and the whole city turned into 
a camp. General Jackson put into the army every man 
that could be raised, even criminals out of jail, and it was 
about this time that Lafitte appeared with two com- 
panies from Barrataria, and was accepted by General Jack- 
son, at first reluctantly, but, finally, under advice of Liv- 
ingstone. 



ANDREW JACKSON. 255 

While General Jackson was trying to pacify the people 
by a proclamation and using every effort to organize some 
forces in the city, his main dependence, Coffee and Carroll, 
had not reached him. Notwithstanding the courage dis- 
played in getting ready to fight with what force he had, 
even if it became necessary before Coffee and Carroll got 
there, it is perfectly manifest that his dependence was upon 
the Tennessee soldiers all the way through. 

As on all other occasions, that day and that night he was 
using his pen writing a letter back to the commander at 
Fort Bowyer to hold his position, and to the officers at 
Fort Phillips, the point he had selected as the place of de- 
fense in keeping the British back in their attempt to flank 
him in coming up the river. He wrote, acquainting that 
officer with the arrival of the enemy, and ordering him to 
hold the fort while a man remained alive to point a gun. 
To General Carroll, who was coming down the river with 
2,500 men, he sent a steamboat to hurry him, and wrote to 
General Carroll a short note, saying: 

"I am resolved, feeble as my force is, to assail the enemy 
on his landing, and perish sooner than he shall reach the 
city;" and to General Coffee, who was on his way with his 
men, he wrote and sent by special messenger: "You must 
not sleep until you reach me, or arrive within striking dis- 
tance. Your accustomed activity is looked for. Innum- 
erable defiles present themselves where your services will 
be all important. An opportunity is at hand to reap for 
yourself and your men the approbation of your country." 

When the messenger reached Coffee he was 150 miles 
from New Orleans. Getting the message and learning the 
facts. Coffee selected 1,200 of his best men — that is, the 
strongest and those who had horses that could stand it — 
and traveled 150 miles in two days. The first day he' 
traveled 70 miles, and the next day he traveled 80 miles. 
This, perhaps, has no parallel in history. 



256 LIFE AND TIMES OF 



CHAPTER XXI. 

LIEUTENANT JONES WITH A SMALL FORCE FIGHTS SO GAL- 
LANTLY THAT THOUGH DEFEATED THE DEFENSE WILL 

LIVE IN HISTORY COFFEE AND CARROLL SENT FOR 

''don't stop till you reach me/' said JACKSON 

COFFEE MAKES A PHENOMENAL MARCH OF ONE HUN- 
DRED AND fifty MILES IN TWO DAYS MAJ. H. H. 

OVERTON GIVEN COMMAND OF FORT PHILLIPS UNPAR- 
ALLELED NIGHT BATTLE OF DECEMBER 23D. 

THE loss of the five gunboats on the 14th of Decem- 
ber must not be passed over without giving the 
facts. We have now reached the point where every 
incident, as well as every day, is a great big chapter. The 
battle in which Lieutenant Jones lost his entire navy — 
five little boats, all captured in his effort to keep the enemy's 
gunboats out of Lake Borgne — is one of the incidents in 
this great conflict which no American historian would pass 
by with a mere notice of the result. 

It was one of many incidents, crowding one on another, 
which shows how Jackson had inspired every man in his 
army with the spirit of resistance. Lieutenant Jones, with 
five little gunboats manned with 182 men with 23 guns, 
met the British fleet of 43 boats, manned with 1,200 men 
and 43 guns. Eaton's ''Life of Jackson" gives the follow- 
ing account of this sanguinary sea fight : 

"The enemy, coming up with the two gunboats in ad- 
vance of the line, and relying on their numbers and sup- 
posed superior skill, determined to attack. For this pur- 
pose several of their barges bore down on No. 156, com- 



ANDREW JACKSON. 257 

manded by Lieutenant Jones, but failed in the attempt; 
they were repulsed with an immense destruction, both in 
their officers and crew, and two of their boats sunk; one 
of them with i8o men went down, immediately under the 
stern of No. 156. Again rallying with a stronger force 
than before, another desperate assault was made to board 
and carry, at the point of the sword, which was again re- 
pelled with considerable loss. The contest was now bravely 
waged and spiritedly resisted. Lieutenant Jones, unable 
to keep on the deck from a severe wound he had received, 
retired, leaving the command with George Parker, who 
no less valiantly defended his flag until, severely wounded, 
he was forced to leave his post. No longer able to main- 
tain the conflict, and overpowered by superior numbers, 
they yielded the victory, after a contest of forty minutes, 
in which everything was done that gallantry could do, and 
nothing unperformed that duty required. The com- 
mandant was ably supported by Lieutenants Spedder and 
McEver, of Nos. 162 and 123, and by Sailing Masters Ulrick 
and Deferris, of Nos. 163 and 5. The two former were 
wounded — McEver severely in both arms, one so badly as 
to be compelled to have it amputated. It is unnecessary 
to take up the time of the reader in commendation of this 
Spartan band; their bravery and good conduct will long 
be remembered and admired, and excite emotions much 
stronger than language can paint. The great disparity of 
force between the combatants added to the advantages the 
enemy derived from the peculiar construction of their 
boats, which gave them an opportunity to take any posi- 
tion that circumstances had directed, while the others la}- 
wholly unmanageable, presents a curious and strange re- 
sult; that, while the American loss was but six killed and 
thirty-five wounded, that of their assailants was not less 
than 300. The British have never afforded us any light 
upon the subject; but from every information and from all 
the attendant circumstances of the battle, it was even be- 
lieved to have exceeded this number, of which a large pro- 
portion was officers. 

"Early on the 15th expresses were sent off, up the coast, 

17 



258 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

in quest of General Coffee, to endeavor to procure informa* 
tion of the Kentucky and Tennessee divisions, which it 
was hoped were not far distant, and to urge their speedy 
approach. In his communication to Coffee the General 
observes, 'You must not sleep until you arrive within strik- 
ing distance. Your accustomed activity is looked for. In- 
numerable defiles present themselves, where your riflemen 
will be all important. An opportunity is at hand to reap 
for yourselves and your brigade the approbation of your 
country.' 

"In obedience to the order he had received at Mobile, 
to occupy some central position, where his horses might be 
subsisted, and whence he might act as circumstances might 
require, Coffee had proceeded as far as Sandy Creek, a 
small distance above Baton Rouge, where he had halted. 
His brigade, on its march, had been greatly exposed and 
had encountered many hardships. The cold season had set 
in, and for twenty days it had rained incessantly. The 
waters were raised to uncommon heights, and every creek 
and bayou had to be bridged or swum. Added to this, 
their march was through a poor country, but thinly settled, 
where little subsistence was to be had, and that procured 
with much difficulty. He had been at this place eight or 
ten days, when, late on the night of the 17th, the express, 
dispatched from headquarters reached him. He lost no 
time in executing the order, and, directing one of his regi- 
ments, which, for the greater convenience of foraging, lay 
about six miles off, to unite with him, he was ready in the 
morning, and marched the instant it arrived. In conse- 
quence of innumerable exposures, there were at this time 
300 on the sick list. 

"Coffee, perceiving that the movement of his whole 
force in a body would perhaps occasion delays ruinous to 
the main object in view, ordered all who were well mounted 
and able to proceed to advance with him, while the rest 
of his brigade, under suitable officers, were left to follow 
on as fast as the weak and exhausted condition of their 
horses would permit. His force, by this arrangement, was 
reduced to 800 men, with whom he moved with the utmost 
industry. Having marched eighty miles the last day, he 



ANDREW JACKSON. 259 

encamped on the night of the 19th within fifteen miles of 
New Orleans, making in two days a distance of 150 miles. 
Continuing his advance early the next morning, he halted 
within four miles of the city to examine the state and con- 
dition of his arms, and to learn, in the event the enemy had 
landed, the relative position of the two armies. 

"These brave men, without murmuring, had now tra- 
versed an extent of country nothing short of 800 miles, and 
under trials sufficiently severe to have appalled the most 
resolute and determined. They had enrolled themselves, 
not as volunteers sometimes do, to frolic, and by peaceable 
campaigns gain a name in arms ; they had done it know- 
ing that an enemy, if not already at hand, was certainly 
expected, with whom they would have to contend, and 
contend severely. Great reliance was had on them by the 
commanding general, and their good conduct in the dif- 
ferent situations in which they had acted with him was a 
proof of how much they deserved it." 

When the news of this disaster — the loss of the five gun- 
boats — reached New Orleans, it created the wildest excite- 
ment, indeed, alarm, because to get into Lake Borgne was 
to land the army in a few miles of the city. But when 
General Jackson rode into the city, having been out inspect- 
ing his works, and found the streets full of women and 
children, all looking into the face of the man of iron, and 
said: "Don't be alarmed; they will never enter your city. 
If they do, it will be over my dead body," the words went 
flying over the city and did much to allay the excitement. 

Already a steamboat had been sent up the river to dis- 
cover the prospect of Carroll reaching the city, but no re- 
port had been made, A messenger was sent, who reached 
Coffee on the 17th above Baton Rouge, and delivered Gen- 
eral Jackson's message ; so that early on the morning of the 
20th General Coffee reported to General Jackson with 800 
men. The balance came up in two or three days. This 
to Jackson was joy enough for one day. But his deepest 
feeling was found in the utterance, "O, that Carroll would 



260 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

come!" Mark the incidents in the history of the army 
that fought the battle of New Oreleans — the Tennessee 
army. 

When Jackson found, in July, that as Major General no 
army was going to be given him, that every soldier the 
Government had or could enlist was needed to save the 
North from England's victorious armies, he at once took 
steps for raising an army of Tennesseans. It will be re- 
membered that he was then closing up the treaty with the 
Creek Indians and had no army. He had one man in 
Tennessee on whom he could rely; that was Governor 
Blount. 

Ever since he refused to obey the orders — rather sug- 
gestion — of Governor Blount and abandon the Creek cam- 
paign for the want of supplies, and wrote the letter which 
changed Governor Blount's mind and made the campaign 
a great success, Governor Blount had stood ready to obey 
Jackson's orders in all military matters. Fortunately, at 
this critical period in the history of the Southwest — in fact, 
critical period in the history of the whole country — the peo- 
ple of Tennessee had come to believe General Jackson was 
a champion, the like of whom had not been seen, and that 
Carroll and Coffee were his vice-regents. Besides, they 
had come to love and listen to their Governor, who had so 
promptly surrendered his own judgment and so heartily 
indorsed Jackson's suggestion to press the Creek campaign. 
Hence, when Jackson found that he was in charge of the 
country where the British were going to make their final 
great effort, and without an army, he simply used these 
men, Coffee, Carroll and Governor Blount, to raise him 
an army in Tennessee. 

Coffee raised 2,800 men, and in the early days of Octo- 
ber, under orders, started across the wilderness to reach 
Jackson at Mobile. After an arduous campaign, and much 
suffering in the want of supplies for both men and horses, 



ANDREW JACKSON. 261 

he reached Mobile, fought the battle of Pensacola, and 
reached New Orleans on December 19, marching in all 
more than 800 miles. Carroll had gone actively to work 
and raised 2,500 men. They assembled at Nashville, and 
in the early days of November he had his boats built for 
descending the river. Many of both commands were of 
the best families in the State. Carroll did not expect water 
before winter, but worked night and day until the boats 
were built. While Coffee had been ordered to cross the 
wilderness and come to Jackson at Mobile, Carroll had 
been ordered to descend the river to New Orleans. 

In the early days of November there came a great rain, 
lasting several days and promising to make a tide. This 
was most uncommon; indeed, rarely ever known before. 
There had been little or no expectation of getting off before 
December, and the volunteers were, many of them, at their 
homes. But the vigilance of Carroll, who had now been 
made a major general, when he found there was a prospect 
of a flood, brought together his entire army, prepared for 
the long voyage to New Orleans, and on November 13th, 
the rise in the river being sufficient, the hurriedly impro- 
vised flatboats, carrying 2,500 volunteers, cut cable and 
swung out into the Cumberland, leaving on the bank a vast 
crowd of women and children waiving their handkerchiefs 
wet with tears. 

From the 13th of November to the 21st of December, 
Carroll, with his Tennesseans, was floating, paddling, and 
pushing his boats. He had a splendid body of men, but 
practically without arms; at least not more than one-sixth 
of the men were armed with guns that could be relied on. 
After he struck the Ohio he overtook a boat loaded with 
guns, guns shipped by the Government from Pittsburg, 
but allowing the boatmen the privilege of trading, which 
caused inexcusable delay. Carroll took charge of this 



262 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

boat, took the guns and armed his men, and, moving with 
all possible haste, he arrived at New Orleans on the 21st 
of December. 

Upon the whole the facts in connection with raising the 
army to fight the battle of New Orleans, and the seeming 
miraculous coincidences connected with the preparation to 
fight it, can but strongly impress the reader with what Gen- 
eral Jackson often said, "Fear not; heaven will smile on 
us." The incredibly short time in which Carroll and Cof- 
fee raised an army of 5,300 men, the orders having been 
given in July, when Jackson found the Government was not 
going to give him an army; the rapid march of Coffee 
across the wilderness, reaching in time to drive the British 
out of Pensacola, destroy their supplies, and then reaching 
New Orleans on the 19th of December, traveling one day 
eighty miles, seems almost incredible. 

Carroll raised in the same time 2,500 men, finished his 
boats near the middle of November, just as the unprece- 
dented great November flood came, and on the way cap- 
tured a flatboat loaded with guns, and arrived in New 
Orelans on the 21st, only two days before the sanguinary 
battle of the 23d, which undoubtedly enabled Jackson to 
hold the British army in check until he got ready to fight, 
is almost marvelous. 

It is painful to record that in making the contract for the 
shipment of two boat loads of arms from Pittsburg to New 
Orleans, the Government had given the contract to flat- 
boat captains, because they proposed to carry them some- 
thing cheaper than the steamboat captain proposed. These 
flatboats were trading boats. The second boat came into 
New Orleans after the battle, and Jackson arrested the 
captain. 

Jackson always said, and so reported to the President, 
that if he had had arms he would have captured the entire 
British army before they got to the ships. 



ANDREW JACKSON. 263 

From December 14th until Coffee and Carroll reached 
him, Jackson's condition was extremely critical; nobody- 
knew it as well as himself. Two parts of regiments, with 
a few dragoons from Mississippi Territory under Captain 
Hinds, and a few untrained Louisiana militia, such as could 
be gotten together in New Orleans, was his entire force 
in front of the best trained armies in the world. Jackson 
had, first, by his commanding presence and confidence in 
the success of the right, to avert a panic, which threatened 
to spread over the entire city. In the second place, he 
was in constant touch with his outposts, his pickets on the 
lakes and on all the roads, that he might be notified of the 
first landing of troops, for being now in Lake Borgne, they 
might land within seven to nine miles of the city. In the 
third place, he had his entire force, with all available ma- 
terial, working on his defenses, which he superintended in 
person. In addition, he was constantly conferring with 
his subordinates and men as to what was meant by war, 
and what was expected of a soldier when his country was 
invaded, and especially invaded by such a set of land 
pirates, as he called the British, whose colonial policy was 
to conquer a country and put an army over the people, and 
then compel the people to support the army that was keeping 
them in subjection. 

The reader has already seen how Jackson imbued Cap- 
tain Lawrence, in command of Fort Bowyer, with the spirit 
of dying at his post, so that when the British ships came in 
sight he called up his men, and they all pledged each other 
that the last man would be there when the fort was shot 
away. 

When he put Maj. W. H. Overton in command of Fort 
Phillips, the fort below New Orleans, to keep the British 
from ascending the river, the orders were to stay on the 
fort as long as there was one man to point a gun, and a 
more gallant defense was never made by man, not one gun- 



264 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

boat getting by — they were shot to pieces or turned back 
as they came. 

After Major Overton got his orders, he ran a pole up 
on the fort, nailed the flag to it so it would not come down, 
so there would be no such thing as surrender, and when 
the fighting was all over all not killed were standing by 
their guns. So with Lieutenant Jones, with 182 men fight- 
ing 1,200 men. He surrendered only when his five little 
boats had been shot to pieces, killing twice as many of the 
enemy as he had men. This watching and working con- 
tinued from the 14th to the 23d, when an event occurred 
which, I think, is without a parallel in history. 

The scene which occurred on the night of December 23d 
has been written up, and written at, by all Jackson's bi- 
ographers and many others, but it was a scene never to be 
put on paper. At the close of a long article by Alexander 
Walker, who wrote "Jackson and New Orleans," a book 
of 200 pages, after showing how Jackson's outposts had 
been surrounded and captured, and how one of them, 
Major Villere, had made his escape, introduces the opening 
scene of the immortal 23d as follows : 

"During all the exciting events of his campaign Jackson 
had barely the strength to stand erect without support; his 
body was sustained alone by the spirit within. Ordinary 
men would have shrunk into feeble imbeciles or useless in- 
valids under such a pressure. The disease contracted in 
the swamps of Alabama still clung to him. Reduced to a 
mere skeleton, unable to digest his food, and unrefreshed 
by sleep, his life seemed to be preserved by some miraculous 
agency. There, in the parlor of his headquarters, in Royal 
Street, surrounded by his faithful and efficient aides, he 
worked day and night, organizing his forces, dispatching 
orders, receiving reports, and making all necessary ar- 
rangements for the defense of the city." 



ANDREW JACKSON. 265 

Jackson was thus engaged at i 130 p. m.^ on December 
23, 1 8 14, when his attention was drawn from certain docu- 
ments he was carefully reading by the sound of horses gal- 
loping down the streets with more rapidity than comported 
with the order of a city under martial law. The sounds 
ceased at the door of his headquarters, and the sentinel on 
duty announced the arrival of three gentlemen who de- 
sired to see the General immediately, having important 
intelligence to communicate. 

"Show them in, " ordered the General. The visitors 
proved to be Dussau de la Croix, Maj. Gabriel Villere, and 
Colonel de la Ronde. They were stained with mud and 
nearly breathless with the rapidity of their ride. 

"What news do you bring, gentlemen?" eagerly asked 
the General. 

"Important! Highly important!" responded Mr. de la 
Croix. "The British have arrived at Villere's plantation, 
nine miles below the city, and are there encamped. Here 
is Major Villere, who was captured by them, who has es- 
caped, and will now relate his story." 

The Major accordingly detailed in a clear and perspicu- 
ous manner the occurrences we have already related, em- 
ploying his mother tongue, the French language, which de 
la Croix translated to the General. At the close of Major 
Villere's narrative, the General drew up his figure, bowed 
with disease and weakness, to its full height, and with an 
eye of fire and an emphatic blow upon the table with his 
clenched fist, exclaimed, "By the eternal, they shall not 
sleep on our soil!" Then, courteously inviting his visitors 
to refresh themselves, and sipping a glass of wine in com- 
pliment to them, he turned to his secretary and aides and 
remarked: "Gentlemen, the British are below; we must 
fight them tonight! Fight them tonight! By the eternal, 
they shall not sleep on our soil !" 

It was I o'clock in the evening when General Jackson 



266 I-IPE AND TIMES OF 

said this. The army he depended on, under Coffee and 
Carroll, was in camp four miles up the river. Orders were 
immediately issued, and in two hours the army, including 
the troops in the city, was moving to the scene, nine miles 
down the river. Was there ever another man that would 
have made this order? Jackson did not know whether 
there were 5,000 men or 20,000. But they are not going 
to sleep on our soil, and we will fight them tonight. 

Commodore Patterson was sent down the river in com- 
mand of the Carolina, and his gun — he only had one — fired 
in the night, was to be the signal. Jackson, with his regu- 
lars and New Orleans militia, was to attack in front on the 
bank of the rivers, and Coffee was sent to the rear to attack 
and drive in the right wing. The signal was given and 
with terrible effect, mowing down the British, who had not 
waked up to the situation. I make the following extracts 
from Eaton about this night battle: 

"Jackson, convinced that an early impression was essen- 
tial to success, had resolved to assail them at the moment 
of their landing, and 'attack them in their first position.' 
We have, therefore, seen him, with a force inferior by one- 
half to that of the enemy, at an unexpected moment, break 
into their camp, and with his undisciplined yeomanry drive 
before him the pride of Europe. It was an event that could 
not fail to destroy all previous theories and establish a con- 
clusion our enemy had not before formed, that they were 
contending against valor inferior to none they had seen — 
before which their own bravery had not stood, nor their 
skill availed them ; it had the effect of satisfying them that 
the quantity and kind of troops it was in his power to yield 
must be different from what had been represented; for, 
much as they had heard of the courage of the man, they 
could not suppose that a general, having a country to de- 
fend and a reputation to preserve, would venture to attack, 
on their own chosen ground, a greatly superior army, and 
one which, by the numerous victories achieved, had already 
acquired a fame in arms; they were convinced that his 



ANDREW JACKSON. 267 

force must greatly surpass what they had expected, and be 
composed of materials different from what they had 
imagined. 

"Coffee's brigade, during the action, imitating the ex- 
ample of their commander, bravely contended, and ably 
supported the character they had established. The unequal 
contest in which they were engaged never occurred to them, 
nor for a moment checked the rapidity of their advance. 
Had the British known they were mere riflemen, without 
bayonets, a firm stand would have arrested their progress, 
and destruction or capture would be the inevitable conse- 
quence ; but this circumstance being unknown, every charge 
they made was crowned with success, producing discom- 
fiture and routing and driving superior numbers before 
them. Officers, from the highest to inferior grades, dis- 
charged what had been expected of them. Ensign Leach, 
of the Seventh Regiment, being wounded through the body, 
still remained at his post, and in the performance of his 
duty." 

Eaton says the American troops actually engaged did 
not amount to 2,000 men, that they were contending with 
a force of 4,000 or 5,000, and that Jackson lost twenty- 
four killed, 115 wounded, and seventy-four prisoners, while 
the British loss was 400. 

This fight bewildered the British; they did not know 
what to make of it — a gun, a long cannon, from the river 
pouring shot into their camp; soldiers in front and in the 
rear rushing in on them with a fury they had never 
dreamed of, shooting at first, then using knives and their 
guns as bludgeons, until it became a hand-to-hand fight 
and until the British were driven under the bank of the 
river, the firing from the boat having ceased on account of 
the mixing up and the desperate hand-to-hand struggle be- 
tween the contending forces. The "Subaltern" who was 
in this terrible night battle has written it up at great length, 
but his account is not materially different from the Ameri- 
can. 



268 LiP^ ^ND TIMES OF 

It will be observed that Carroll was not in this fight. 
Jackson had left him to watch the city and the roads into 
it, in the belief that the British might attempt a flank move- 
ment. In this fight the Americans had no bayonets, but 
fought with knives, such as Tennessee soldiers then carried. 
The British fought with bayonets. The wounded and 
dead on both sides conclusively showed the character of the 
battle. 



ANDREW JACKSON. 269 



CHAPTER XXII. 

JACKSON TOUCHED WITH A GENIUS OF WAR BROUGHT 

RELIEF HOW THE NIGHT BATTLES SHOCKED THE 

BRITISH ARMY NOLTE's STORY ABOUT THE COTTON 

BALES A FALSEHOOD ; NO COTTON BALES USED JACK- 
SON READY FOR THE FIGHT ON THE 27TH OF DECEMBER 
TOOK SOME REST AFTER FOUR DAYS AND NIGHTS WITH- 
OUT REST THE BATTLE OF THE 28tH OF DECEMBER, 

IF this country has onerated any man with greater re- 
sponsibilities than were put on General Jackson in 
defending New Orleans against the British army, the 
evidence has not been given to the public ; and if any public 
man, in civil or military life, has discharged a great public 
duty with more intelligent fidelity and courage than he did, 
history does not proclaim it. His beloved country had 
been at war for two years with the most war-like nation in 
the world. The enemy had attacked and literally over- 
come, beaten on every field where the issue had been joined, 
the American troops, and this in the most populous parts 
of the United States, and where the Government had put 
forward all its strength to oppose the invaders. Such had 
been the victories of the trained armies of England over 
our raw militia in the North, that we were fast losing the 
reputation, as a people of martial spirit, which we had 
when the Revolution closed; and the English press, from 
the London Times down to the doggerel makeshifts, was 
berating us as a nation of cowards — ready to get up a war, 
but too cowardly to fight. 

The war had been brought on by a few bold men in Con- 
gress, who fully appreciated our unprepared state to fight 
England, but who were not willing longer to bear the in- 



270 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

dignities heaped upon us. Every ship we had was land- 
locked; our seamen were in loathsome prisons, taken from 
our ships that had been captured under the pretended right 
of search, and some on their way to England to be tried 
and hanged as traitors, having once been British subjects. 

Madison and Jefferson, one President and the other ex- 
President, had been doubtful and slow about bringing on 
the war, owing to the unprepared state, and at the very 
time Jackson was exerting all his power to rescue the 
nation from dishonor and prevent subjugation, all New 
England was clamoring for peace. And from the time 
of the capitulation of Napoleon our ministers abroad were 
notifying the President of the immense preparations being 
made by England to send an army and navy to the South. 
But such was the condition in the North that no troops 
could be spared and sent to Jackson. He was made major 
general, and told to defend the Southern coast. 

England had only one ally in the South — the Creek 
Nation — the most warlike tribe of Indians at that time on 
the continent. This great fighting tribe inhabited the 
country between the settlements, the Tennesse River coun- 
try and the Gulf Coast, but Jackson, of his own motion and 
without help from the Government, had completly sup- 
pressed this ally before the critical moment now under 
consideration came. At the time Jackson closed up the 
Jackson treaty with the Creek Indians, there was abso- 
lutely no force with which to protect New Orleans and 
defend the Southern coast. 

It can be said, and ought to be written in letters that will 
live forever, that Jackson — Jackson, solitary and alone, 
and by force of his own character, backed only by a will 
power as resistless as commanding, and with which every 
movement was touched with the genius of war — organized 
the army that saved the entire nation from the deepest 
humiliation. 



ANDREW JACKSON. 271 

When Jackson fought the battle of Pensacola and turned 
his troops in the direction of New Orleans, there was not 
force enough in that city to protect it against one single 
British regiment. And, in fact, until the 5,300 Ten- 
nesseans under Carroll and Coffee reached New Orleans, 
Jackson had nothing he could rely on but the magic of his 
dominating presence. If the enemy had moved upon him 
at any time after he reached New Orleans he would have 
gone into the city, perhaps over the dead body of the great 
soldier, but certainly into it, and with only a bare pretense 
of resistance. 

The battle of the 23d of December, the night battle — 
led by Jackson in person — was a shock to the British army. 
The whole army seemed to be stunned by it, and so the 
"Subaltern" puts it. They were dumbfounded; they did 
not know what to make of it. As the "Subaltern," in a 
long and carefully written account of it, shows, the British 
officers came to the conclusion (friends who had slipped out 
of New Orleans and come over to them had told them 
stories about Jackson's scant and ragged army) that 
Jackson must have an immense force; that, while they had 
heard much of Jackson's dash and courage, they did not 
believe any general who did not have an immense army 
behind him would have risked such an attack as that on the 
night of the 23d. 

Before daylight on the 24th, Jackson ordered Carroll up 
to renew the fight of the 23d, but on receiving reliable 
information that the enemy was largely reinforced, he 
adopted the policy of strengthening his defenses and waiting 
the assault of the enemy. 

Among other losses in the celebrated night battle was that 
of Colonel Lauderdale, of Coffee's brigade, an officer on 
whom every reliance was placed. He fell at his post. He 
had entered the service and descended the river with the 
volunteers under General Jackson in 181 2, passed through 



272 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

all the hardships of the Creek War, and had ever manifested 
a readiness when the country needed his services. Young, 
brave, and skillful, he had furnished ample evidence of his 
capacity as an officer. His death was generally regretted, 
but especially did General Jackson deplore his loss. He 
never had a better soldier. 

The rising sun of the 24th found Jackson's army at work 
on the fortifications for the coming battle. Bringing up 
and landing new troops constantly, there was no mistaking 
the purpose of the enemy, and Jackson instantly realized 
that the entire force would, and perhaps very soon, under- 
take to enter the city. The line of his defense had already 
been chosen. 

A florid and unreliable writer named Nolte worked up a 
story, weaving himself into it, about Jackson's breastworks 
of cotton bales, which has gone to the uttermost parts of the 
earth, and since I have been writing this chapter I saw in 
a city paper a recognition of the cotton-bale story. Here 
is the way Nolte tells it : 

"Jackson, who at once adopted the plan, was anxious to 
lose no time. It was intimated to him that in the city he 
could procure plenty of cotton at from 7 to 8 cents per 
pound, but that it would cost a whole day to bring it to the 
spot. He was then told that not far from the camp, and in 
the rear of his position, there lay a bark in the stream, laden 
with cotton, for Havana. The name of this vessel was 
Pallas, unless my memory, after a lapse of thirty-eight 
years, deceives me, and she was to have sailed before the 
arrival of the British force. Her cargo consisted of 245 
bales, which I had shipped previously to the invasion, and 
the remainder, about sixty bales, belonged to a Spaniard 
named Fernando Alzar, resident at New Orleans. It was 
only when the cotton had been brought to the camp and they 
were proceeding to lay the first bales in the redoubt that the 
marks struck my attention and I recognized my own prop- 
erty. Adjutant Livingstone, who had been my usual legal 
counsel at New Orleans, that evening inspected Battery No. 



ANDREW JACKSON. 273 

3, where the men were arranging some bales. I was some- 
what vexed at the idea of their taking cotton of the best 
sort, and worth from 10 to 11 cents, out of a ship already 
loaded and on the point of sailing, instead of procuring the 
cheaper kind, which was to be had in plenty throughout the 
suburbs of the city at 7 or 8 cents, and said as much to 
Livingstone. 

"He, who was never at a loss for a reply, at once 
answered, 'Well, Mr. Nolte, if this is your cotton, you, at 
least, will not think it any hardship to defend it.' This 
anecdote, which was first related by myself, gave rise to the 
story that Jackson, when a merchant was complaining of 
the loss of his cotton, had ordered a sergeant to hand the 
gentleman a rifle, with the remark, 'No one can defend these 
cotton bales better than their owners can, and I hope you 
will not leave the spot.' " 

There was some experiment made with cotton bales, but 
the question of fire and smoke occurred to General Jackson, 
and it was abandoned; not one cotton bale was used as a 
means of defense ; not one was used in any of the battles. 

There was below the city what was once known as the 
Roderiquez Canal. It had extended from the swamp to 
the river, a distance of more than one mile, but parts of it, 
however, were filled with dirt. When the fog of the morn- 
ing of the 24th cleared away, Jackson's army was behind 
this canal. Not only the army, but every available man in 
the city, every shovel, was brought into requisition. This 
canal, a great big ditch, was rapidly cleaned out, and the 
part of it next the river for a considerable distance, which 
had been closed up, was reopened, so that the ditch extended 
entirely across the plain at the narrowest place. 

This 24th day of December, 18 14, should be called the 
day of chronicles. In the first place, it was the day of all 
work. Never did 5,000 men do more digging and shovel- 
ing in one day, while the coerced labor of the city brought 
timbers, barrels, fence rails, and all conceivable material 

18 



274 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

out of which to build the breastworks on the side of the 
ditch next the city. In the second place, it was the begin- 
ning of the test of Jackson's wonderful endurance, which, 
if true, is the most remarkable illustration of great endur- 
ance under great excitement on record. 

The story is not always credited, but it comes from Liv- 
ingstone and Reed, who were Jackson's aides and with him 
every day. Here is the account given : 

"The anxiety and excitement, produced by the mighty 
object before him, were such as overcame the demand of 
nature, and for four days and four nights he was without 
sleep and was constantly employed. His line of defense 
being completed on the night of the 27th, he, for the first 
time since the arrival of the enemy, retired to rest and 
repose. Edward Livingstone, in careless, familiar con- 
versation, used to say 'three days and three nights.' 'Nor, 
during these days,' the same gentleman was accustomed to 
say, 'did the General once sit at table or take a regular meal. 
Food was brought to him in the field, which he would 
oftenest consume without dismounting.' When Mr. Liv- 
ingstone, fearful of the consequences of such unremitting 
toil upon a constitution severely shattered, would remon- 
strate with him and implore him to take some repose, he 
would reply : 'No, sir ; there's no knowing when or where 
these rascals will attack. They shall not catch me unpre- 
pared. When we have driven the red-coated villains into 
the swamp, there will be time enough to sleep.' " 

In the third place, this 24th day of December, 181 4, 
Saturday, was the day on which the treaty of Ghent was 
signed and peace made. And here I want to say again 
that the commissioners were all of the opinion that Jack- 
son's victories in the Creek Nation the winter before made 
this treaty possible. In the fourth place, that Saturday, 
the 24th, General Packenham, accompanied by Major Gen- 
eral Gibbs, arrived from England to take command of the 
army. 



ANDREW JACKSON. 275 

It has generally been a matter of surprise that, after the 
battle of the 23d, the British army was inactive until the 
8th of January — fifteen days — while Jackson was fortify- 
ing, and under such circumstances that the general in com- 
mand of the British army must have known what he was 
doing. The least vigilance, by the use of glasses or by his 
scouts, would have shown the most determined activity on 
the part of Jackson. While the British commander has 
been criticised on account of his delay, and the American 
public especially has been unable to account for it, there has 
been a great lack of information as to what was done. 
General Packenham arrived and took command of the army 
on the 24th. The disaster of the night before had left the 
army with a bewildered outlook. This is shown by the 
"Subaltern" in describing a dinner by the officers on the 
25th. 

The first thing General Packenham did was to give 
orders that heavy guns must be brought up and the Carolina 
destroyed. She was in the river and throwing shot in such 
a way as to satisfy General Packenham that, while this 
boat and the Louisiana, just above, were in the river, he 
could not move his army along the road up the river bank 
and attack Jackson and reach New Orleans. These big 
guns were brought up from the ships and put in position. 
This was the 27th. A most gallant defense was made, but 
this is the report made by Captain Henley : 

"Finding that hot shot were passing through her cabin 
and filling-room, which contained a considerable quantity 
of powder, her bulwarks all knocked down by the enemy's 
shot, the vessel, in a sinking condition, and the fire increas- 
ing, and expecting every moment that she would blow up, 
at a little after sunrise I reluctantly gave orders for the crew 
to abandon her, which was effected with the loss of one 
man killed and six wounded. A short time after I had 
gotten the crew on shore I had the extreme mortification of 



276 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

seeing her blown up. It affords me great pleasure to 
acknowledge the able assistance I received from Lieutenants 
Norris and Crawley and Sailing Master Haller, and to say 
that my officers and crew behaved on this occasion, as well 
as on the 23d, when under your own eye, in a most gallant 
manner. Almost every article of clothing belonging to the 
officers and crew, from the rapid progress of the fire, was 
involvd in the destruction of the vessel." 



General Jackson, from his headquarters, witnessed the 
terrific attack on the Carolina, and soon discovered that the 
end of the boat which had done such service on the night 
of the 23d had come. The Louisiana was higher up the 
river, but not out of reach of the big guns, and while the 
shooting to pieces of the Carolina was going on, by an 
extraordinary effort Jackson had the Louisiana pushed 
further up the river and saved until some other move should 
be made. 

While this was going on, General Jackson's greatest 
concern was about strengthening and increasing his fortifi- 
cations. The army, as well as the General, saw the time 
had come. Never was a better day's work done. The 
"Subaltern" shows a most extraordinary state of things on 
the night of the 27th in the British army. The soldiers got 
no rest ; that Jackson's Indian fighters kept the whole army 
in commotion; they would in squads run in on the lines 
and fire in on sleeping squads, causing great excitement 
throughout the army. This was probably increased by a 
remembrance of the 23d, that they killed their pickets and 
shot the roundsmen. He shows that one of these Indian 
fighters killed three sentinels at one post — killing one, get- 
ting his gun, removing the body a short distance and wait- 
ing until his place was supplied, and that he piled up three 
sentinels and left. 

The morning of the 28th was a bright and balmy day. 
Jackson early in the morning discovered by the use of his 



ANDREW JACKSON. 277 

glasses that General Packenham was preparing for his final 
attack. All Jackson's early biographers say he was never 
better pleased. Besides the spirit of "fight on first sight," 
which was his nature, as his whole life shows, he was now 
ready, as he believed, to meet the enemy. The Carolina 
being disposed of, the captain and his marines were in the 
ranks. Jackson had a way of using seamen as soldiers, 
soldiers as seamen, cavalry as infantry, and infantry as 
cavalry. 

Not getting ready on the 27th, Packenham had his army 
early to rest for the next day, but the "Subaltern" gives 
the account of the night's rest in the following graphic 
language : 

"Sending down small bodies of riflemen, the American 
General harassed our pickets, killed and wounded a few of 
the sentinels, and prevented the main body from obtaining 
any sound or refreshing sleep. Scarcely had the troops 
laid down when they were aroused by a sharp firing at the 
outposts, which lasted only till they were in order, and then 
ceased; but as soon as they had dispersed and had once 
more addressed themselves to repose, the same cause of 
alarm returned and they were again called to their ranks. 
Thus was the entire night spent in watching, or, at least, in 
broken and disturbed slumbers, than which nothing is more 
trying, both to the health and spirits of an army. 

"An enemy was to them an enemy, whether alone or in 
the midst of 5,000 companions, and they therefore counted 
the death of every individual as so much taken from the 
strength of the whole. In point of fact, they no doubt 
reasoned correctly, but to us at least it appeared an ungener- 
ous return to barbarity. Whenever they could approach 
unperceived in proper distance of our watch fires, six or 
eight riflemen would fire among the party that sat around 
them, while one or two, stealing as close to each sentinel as 
a regard to their own safety would permit, acted the part 
of assassins rather than that of soldiers, and attempted to 
murder them in cold blood; for the officers likewise, in 
going their rounds, they constantly lay in wait, and thus by 



278 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

a continued dropping fire, they not only wounded some 
against whom their aim was directed, but occasioned con- 
siderable anxiety and uneasiness throughout the whole line." 

This gives an insight into Jackson's generalship only 
found in the reports of the enemy. It was strategem of the 
highest order, and was kept up nightly until the final battle 
on the 8th of January. 

While in some way or by some means the battle of the 
28th is scarcely known to the American people as a feature 
in this wonderful campaign, the British historian, the "Sub- 
altern," so complimented by Lord Wellington for writing 
what he saw, gives an account of this battle, which is a most 
interesting chapter in American history. 

I cannot do better than to give his account, which, coming 
from a British writer who witnessed it and was a soldier in 
it, will not be taken as more than fair to the American army. 
Here is what he says : 

"The enemy's corps of observation (Hinds' dragoons) 
fell back as we advanced, without offering in any way to 
impede our progress, and it was impossible, ignorant as we 
were of the position of the enemy's main body, at what 
moment opposition might be expected. Nor, in truth, 
was it a matter of much anxiety. Our spirits, in spite of 
the troubles of the night, were good, and our expectations 
of success were high; consequently, many rude jests were 
bandied about and many careless words spoken, for soldiers 
are, of all classes of men, the freest from care, and on that 
account, perhaps, the most happy. By being continually 
exposed to it, danger with them ceased to be frightful; of 
death they have no more terror than the beasts that perish ; 
and even hardships, such as cold, wet, hunger, and broken 
rest, lose at least part of their disagreeableness by the fre- 
quency of their occurrence. 

"Moving on in this merry mood, we advanced about four 
or five miles without the smallest check or hindrance, when 
at length we found ourselves in view of the enemy's army 
poster in a very advantageous manner. About forty yards 



ANDREW JACKSON. 279 

in their front was a canal, which extended from the morass 
to within a short distance of the high road. Along their 
line were thrown up breastworks, not indeed completed, but 
even now formidable. Upon the road, and at several other 
points, were erected powerful batteries, whilst the ship, with 
a large flotilla of gunboats, flanked the whole position from 
the river. 

"When I say that we came in sight of the enemy I do not 
mean that he was gradually exposed to us in such a manner 
as to leave time for cool examination and reflection. On 
the right, indeed, he was seen for some time, but on the left 
a few houses built at a turning in the road entirely concealed 
him ; nor was it till they had gained that turning point and 
beheld the muzzles of the guns pointed towards them that 
those who moved in this direction were aware of their prox- 
imity to danger, but that danger was, indeed near, they 
were quickly taught; for, scarcely had the head of the 
column passed the houses when a deadly fire opened from 
both the battery and the shipping. That the Americans 
are excellent marksmen, as well with artillery as with rifles, 
we have had frequent calls to acknowledge; but, perhaps, 
on no occasion do they assert their claims to the title of good 
artillerymen more effectually than on the present. Scarcely 
a ball passed over or fell short of its mark, but all striking 
in the midst of our ranks, occasioned terrible havoc. The 
shrieks of the wounded, therefore, the crash of firelocks of 
such as were killed caused at first some little confusion, and 
what added to the panic was that from the houses beside 
bright flames suddenly burst out. The Americans, expect- 
ing this attack, had filled them with combustibles for the 
purpose, and, directing against them one or two guns loaded 
with redhot shot, in an instant set them on fire. The scene 
was altogether very sublime. A tremendous cannonade 
mowed down our ranks and deafened us with its roar, whilst 
two large chateaus and their outbuildings almost scorched 
us with the smoke which they emitted. 

"The infantry, however, was not long suffered to remain 
thus exposed, but, being ordered to quit the path, and to 
form the line in the fields, the artillery was brought up and 
opposed to that of the enemy. But the contest was in every 
respect unequal, since their artillery far exceeded ours, both 



280 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

in numerical strength and weight of metal. The conse- 
quence was that in half an hour two of our field pieces and 
one field mortar were dismounted, many of the gunners 
were killed, and the rest, after an ineffectual attempt to 
silence the fire of a shipping, were obliged to retire. 

"In the meantime, the infantry having formed line, 
advanced under a heavy discharge of round and grape shot 
till they were checked by the appearance of the canal. Of 
its depth they were, of course, ignorant, and to attempt its 
passage without having ascertained whether it could be 
forded might have been productive of fatal consequences. 
A halt was accordingly ordered, and the men were com- 
manded to shelter themselves as well as they could from the 
enemy's fire. For this reason they were hurried into a wet 
ditch of sufficient depth to cover their knees, where, leaning 
forward, they concealed themselves behind some high rushes 
which grew upon its brink, and thus escaped many bullets 
which fell around them in all directions. 

"Thus fared it with the left of the army, whilst the right, 
though less exposed to the cannonade, was not more suc- 
cessful in its object. The same impediment which checked 
one column forced the other likewise to pause, and, after 
having driven in an advance body of the enemy, and endeav- 
oring without effect to penetrate through the marsh, it also 
was commanded to halt. In a word, all thought of attack- 
ing was for the day abandoned, and it now only remained 
to withdraw the troops from their present perilous situation 
with as little loss as possible. 

"The first thing to be done was to remove the dismounted 
guns. Upon this enterprise a party of seamen was 
employed, who, running forward to the spot where they 
lay, lifted them, in spite of the whole of the enemy's fire, 
and bore them off in triumph. As soon as this was effected, 
regiment after regiment stole away, not in a body, but one 
by one, under the same discharge which saluted their 
approach. But a retreat thus conducted necessarily occu- 
pied much time. Noon had long passed before the last 
corps was brought off, and when we again began to muster 
twilight was approaching." 



ANDREW JACKSON. 281 

In addition to the "Subaltern," a British officer named 
Hill wrote about this battle of the 28th, in which he said : 

"In spite of our sanguine expectations of sleeping that 
night in New Orleans, evening found us occupying our 
negro hut at Villeres, nor was I sorry that the shades of 
night concealed our mortification from the prisoners and 
slaves. As for our allies, the Indians, they had not 
increased in number. The countless tribes promised by 
Colonel Nichols had not yet appeared; the five or six red- 
skins I have already named hung about headquarters. The 
prophet, to avoid censure at the fallacy of his predictions, 
contrived to get gloriously drunk, nor was the King of the 
Muscogies in a much more sober state. His Majesty had 
consoled himself for the ill fortune of the day by going 
from hut to hut imploring rum and asserting that he hun- 
gered for drink." 

I have been thus particular in giving the facts about this 
battle of the 28th, and especially giving what English 
writers have said about it, because so little attention has 
been paid to it by American writers generally, that but little 
is known of it by our people. It was like the battle of the 
23d — a most sanguinary battle, with very considerable loss 
to the enemy and a complete victory. The battle scarcely 
known by the American people to have been fought was a 
bigger battle than any fought in the Spanish War or in the 
Philippine War. 

The truth is, we have scarcely known anything as to 
General Jackson's campaign, except that he destroyed the 
Creek Nation, captured Pensacola, and fought the battle of 
New Orleans. Indeed, Jackson had the British whipped 
before he got to them, and his great generalship was dis- 
played in getting ready to fight the final battle. 

This battle of the 28th, like the night battle of the 23d, as 
given by British officers and correspondents who were in it, 
and were eye witnesses, gives us new American history. 



282 ^JFE, AND TIMES OF 

The final great victory of the 8th of January, like a great 
lip-ht in the heavens that obscures lesser lights — so the 
world-wide victory of the 8th hid away the triumphant 
victories of the 23d, the 28th, and the ist of January, until 
the truth is gathered up from the vanquished soldiers who 
witnessed them, and came to tell the story as they saw it. 



ANDREW JACKSON. 283 



CHAPTKR XXIII. 

THE "subaltern" A WITNESS WALKER, AUTHOR OF 

"jACKSON AND NEW ORLEANS/' BECOMES A WITNESS 

THE BATTLE OF THE FIRST OF JANUARY THE GREAT 

BATTLE CONTEST FROM THE 23D OF DECEMBER UNTIL 
THE 8th of JANUARY IT WAS A CONTINUOUS FIGHT. 

THE "Subaltern" says that during the last three days 
of the year the British army remained inactive, 
without an effort to fortify its position or to annoy 
the enemy. In this the "Subaltern" was evidently mis- 
taken, because every hour of the three days was consumed 
in getting heavy guns in position. "Some attempts," he 
says, "were set on foot to penetrate the woods on the right 
of the line, and to discover a way through the morass, by 
which the enemy's left might be turned. But all this," he 
says, "proved fruitless, and, a few valuable lives having 
been sacrificed, the idea was laid aside." Then he goes on : 
"In the meanwhile the American General directed the whole 
of his attention to the strengthening of his line. Day and 
night we could observe numerous parties at work upon his 
lines, whilst from the increased number of tents, which 
might almost every hour be discerned, it is evident that 
strong reinforcements were constantly passing into his 
camp." (In this he was mistaken, as no reinforcements 
came.) 

"Nor did he leave us totally unmolested. By giving his 
guns a great degree of elevation, he contrived at last to 
reach our bivouac, and thus we were constantly under a 
cannonade, which, though it did little execution, was 
extremely annoying. Besides this, he now began to erect 



284 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

batteries on the opposite side of the river, from which a 
flanking fire could be thrown across the entire front of his 
position. In short, he adopted every precaution which 
prudence could suggest, and for which the nature of the 
ground was so admirably adapted" — a great compliment 
from the enemy. , 

This is the recognized British chronicle of the days on 
which the fate of a nation seemed to be turning. He shows 
that, while the British army was already so beaten that it 
did nothing during these three days, General Jackson was 
not only vigilant, but intelligently working for the great 
conflict which must come. It was during these three days 
that he put all his soldiers who had no guns at work building 
a second line of defense, two miles nearer the city, so that 
if driven from his first line he could fall back to that line and 
make another stand. These three days were in the time 
that his officers say he did not sleep and took his meals on 
horseback. It was at this time that a member of the Legis- 
lature asked General Jackson what he would do if he had to 
give up New Orleans, when his reply was : "If I thought 
one hair of my head knew what I was going to do, I would 
pull it out." 

But years afterward General Jackson told Major Eaton 
that if he had been driven from his position, he would have 
burned the city and retreated up the river, fighting over 
every inch of the ground. General Jackson fully believed 
from the Lafitte papers, which turned out to be genuine, 
and from the cruel and savage conduct of the British army 
in the North, that the whole South would be laid in ruins 
unless he could check the army; and that the plan was to 
take New Orleans, then ascend the river and take and divide 
up the country, forming a junction with the victorious 
armies of the North. Indeed, as it turned out, there were 
civil officers already appointed to hold the important posi- 
tions at New Orleans and other cities, and these civil 



ANDREW JACKSON. 285 

officers were a part of the fleet that left Jamaica. The 
collector of revenue brought all his family, five daughters, 
who were to be substituted for Creole society. The fear 
that Jackson might, if defeated, make a Moscow of New 
Orleans, caused the belief that the Legislature was about 
to surrender the city, causing Jackson to guard it while he 
whipped the British. 

Jackson believed the British meant, by a coalition with 
the Indians, to subjugate the country, and on this issue New 
Orleans was nothing. He intended, if driven from his 
lines of defense, to call out every man in the Southern 
States that could get a gun, raise new armies, cut off their 
supplies, and defend the liberties of the people as long as 
one man could carry a gun. Jackson impressed Carroll 
and Coffee — in fact, all his followers, indeed, his private 
soldiers, to a certain extent — that the country must be 
defended, or as soldiers they must all die; that death was 
the soldier's inheritance and rightful reward, if it came in 
the line of duty in defending his country. 

In the Creek War, in the forts, in all the battles in defense 
of New Orleans, it is undoubtedly true that Jackson inspired 
both officers and men under him with a courage of despera- 
tion as no other general ever did in this country. 

The battle of the 8th of January is a mystery. It is diffi- 
cult to believe the well-established facts. Historians have 
been slow to admit the facts as they are. In these chapters 
I am undertaking to account for this marvelous triumph 
by untrained militia over one of the best armies England 
ever sent into the field, and I trust my readers will not be 
impatient to have me reach that memorable day in our 
history, because to know and be satisfied about the result 
of the 8th, and the complete triumph of General Jackson, 
contending with more than double his number, and how it 
was done, the whole facts must be given, though it may 
seem tedious. No writer that I have found has satisfac- 



286 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

torily accounted for this marvelous chapter in war. Jack- 
son, by a generalship that has no counterpart, whipped this 
great battle before he got to it. If I take what may seem 
to be more time than necessary in reaching the final struggle, 
let it be remembered that nothing like it is recorded in 
history. 

Two thousand dead British, and less than a dozen men 
lost on the American side, is the wonder in war's record, the 
loss from the time of landing being more than 3,000. 

One of the most graphic, as well as reliable, of all the 
writers on this eventful period is Mr. Walker, in "Jackson 
and New Orleans." He describes the three days between 
the 28th of December, 1814, and the ist of January, 181 5, 
when the two armies were confronting each other on a 
level plain, as follows; 

"These wily frontiersmen," continued Mr. Walker, 
"habituated to the Indian mode of warfare, never missed a 
chance of picking up a straggler or sentinel. Clad in their 
dusky, brown homespun, they would glide unperceived 
through the woods, and, taking a cool view of the enemy's 
lines, would cover the first Briton who came within range 
of their long, small-bored rifles. Nor did they waste their 
ammunition. Whenever they drew a bead on any object 
it was certain to fall. The cool indifference with which 
they would perform the most daring acts would be amazing. 

"The plain between the two hostile camps was alive day 
and night with small parties on foot and horse, wandering 
to and fro in pursuit of adventure, on the trail of recon- 
noiterers, stragglers, and outpost sentinels. The natural 
restlessness and nomadic tendency of the Americans were 
here conspicuously displayed. After a while there grew 
up a regular science in the conduct of these modes of vexing, 
annoying, and weakening the enemy. Their system, it is 
true, is not to be found in Vauben's, Steuben's, or Scott's 
Military Tactics, but it nevertheless proved to be quite effect- 
ive. It was as follows : A small number of each corps, being 
permitted to leave the lines, would start from their position, 



ANDREW JACKSON. 287 

and all converge to a central point in front of the lines. 
Here they would, when all collected, make quite a formi- 
dable body of men, and, electing their own commander, 
would proceed to attack the nearest British outpost, or 
advance in extended lines, so as to create alarm in the 
enemy's camp and subject them to the vexation of being 
driven to arms, in the midst of which the scouting party 
would be unusually lucky if it did not succeed in 'bagging' 
one or two of the enemy's advanced sentinels. 

"In such incessant scouting parties and volunteer opera- 
tions as we have described a majority of Jackson's command 
were engaged during a greater part of the night. So 
daring were these attacks that on more than one occasion 
the six-pounders were advanced from the lines and drawn 
within cannon shot of the outposts, when they would be 
discharged at the sentinels or any living object, generally 
with some effect, and always with great terror to the British 
camp, causing a general apprehension that the Americans 
were advancing to attack them in full force. 

"After midnight the skirmishers would return to their 
camp and resign themselves to sleep, using for their beds 
brush collected from the swamp; and the Tennesseans, 
who were encamped on the extreme left, lying on gunwales 
or logs raised a few inches above the surface of the water 
or soft mire of the morass. About two hours after day- 
break, a general stir would be observable in the American 
camp ; this was for the general muster. Drums were then 
beaten and several bands of music, among which that of the 
Orleans battalion (Planche's) was conspicuous, would 
animate the spirits of the men with martial strains that 
could be heard in the desolate and gloomy camp of the 
British, where no melodious notes or other sounds of cheer- 
fulness were allowed to mock their misery ; where not even 
a bugle sounded, unless as a warning or a summons of the 
g-uard to the relief of some threatened outpost." 

During these three days Packenham brought up thirty 
big guns from the fleet, and they were put in position. 
These guns were moved in the night, and on the last night 
they were placed so as to be seen by Jackson's troops next 



288 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

morning. They were twenty long eighteens and ten twenty- 
fours. The "Subaltern" says, speaking of the night of 
the 31st: 

"One-half of the army was ordered out and marched to 
the front, passing the piquets, and halting about three hun- 
dred yards from the enemy's line. Here it was resolved to 
throw up a chain of works, and here the greater part of the 
detachment, laying down their firelocks, applied themselves 
vigorously to their tasks, while the rest stood armed and 
prepared for their defense. The night was dark and our 
people maintained a profound silence, by which means not 
an idea of what was going on existed in the American camp. 
As we labored, too, with all diligence, six batteries were 
completed long before dawn, in which were mounted thirty 
pieces of heavy cannon ; when, falling back a little, we 
united ourselves to the remainder of the infantry and lay 
down behind the rushes in readiness to act as soon as we 
should be wanted. 

"In the erection of these batteries a circumstance occurred 
worthy of notice on account of its singularity. I have 
already stated that the whole of this district was covered 
with the stubble of sugar cane, and I might have added 
that every storehouse and barn attached to the different 
mansions scattered over it was filled with barrels of sugar. 
In throwing up these works, the sugar was used instead of 
earth. Rolling the hogsheads towards the front, they were 
placed upright in the parapets of the batteries, and it was 
computed that sugar to the value of many thousand pounds 
sterling was thus disposed of." 

The first day of January, 181 5, is a memorable day in 
this memorable campaign. The battle of the 28th, over- 
shadowed by the immortal 8th, is scarcely known to the 
American public, but it was a great victory for him who 
said, "Don't be alarmed; if the British get into New 
Orleans it will be over my dead body." Then came three 
days of waiting — with Jackson's army waiting, but work- 
ing like beavers. Early on the morning of the ist, General 



ANDREW JACKSON. 289 

Jackson ordered a grand review. Up to half-past nine an 
immense fog obscured the armies from each other. This 
parade was in full view of the British army when the fog 
arose. The "Subaltern" says : 

"When the fog disappeared, being only three hundred 
yards away, we could perceive all that was going on with 
great exactness. The different regiments were on parade, 
and, being dressed in holiday suits, presented a really fine 
appearance. Mounted officers were riding backwards and 
forwards through the ranks ; bands were playing and colors 
floating in the air; in a word, all seemed jollity and gala." 

As the fog cleared away, Jackson's army saw thirty 
pieces of artillery only three hundred yards away, all in 
position to sweep the field. At a signal from the central 
battery, the whole of the thirty guns opened fire full upon 
the American lines. This produced some confusion; but 
Jackson's guns were also in position, and, Parton says, 
Patterson's guns on the other side of the river were in posi- 
tion to do service in the coming battle. 

Before the battle commenced, Jackson walked from bat- 
tery to battery, his men everywhere cheering him. Mr. 
Parton says : 

"Vain are all words to convey to the unwarlike reader an 
idea of this tremendous scene. Imagine fifty pieces of 
cannon, of large caliber, each discharged from once to thrice 
a minute; often a simultaneous discharge of half-a-dozen 
pieces, an average of two discharges every second; while 
plain and river were so densely covered with smoke that 
the gunners aimed their guns from recollection chiefly, and 
knew scarcely anything of the effect of their fire." 

When the firing ceased and the smoke cleared away and 
the British position was disclosed, the British batteries 
presented formless masses of soil and broken guns. The 
author of "Jackson and New Orleans" says : 

19 



200 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

''Never was work more completely done, more perfectly 
finished and rounded off. Earth and heavens fairly shook 
with prolonged shouts of the Americans over this spectacle. 
Still the remorseless artillerists would not cease their fire. 
The British infantry would now and then raise their heads 
and peep forth from the ditches in which they were so 
ingloriously ensconced. The level plain presented but a few 
knolls or elevations to shelter them, and the American artil- 
lerists were as skillful as riflemen in picking off those who 
exposed ever so small a portion of their bodies. Several 
extraordinary examples of this skill were communicated to 
the writer bv a British officer who was attached to Packen- 
ham's army. A number of the officers of the Ninety-third, 
having taken refuge in a shallow hollow behind a slight 
elevation, it was proposed that the only married officer of 
the party should lie at the bottom, it being deemed the safest 
place. Lieutenant Phaups was the officer indicated, and 
laughingly assumed the position assigned him. This 
mound had attracted the attention of the American gunners, 
and a great quantity of shot was thrown at it. Lieutenant 
Phaups could not resist the anxiety to see what was going 
on in front, and, peeping forth, with not more than half of 
his head exposed, was struck by a twelve-pound shot and 
instantly killed. His companions buried him on the spot 
on which he fell, in full uniform. Several officers and men 
were picked off in a similar manner." 

The "Subaltern" says of this battle : 

"Once more we were obliged to retire, leaving our heavy 
guns to their fate; but as no attempt was made by the 
Americans to secure them, some of our soldiers returned 
after dark, and such as had not been destroyed were 
removed. 

"Of the fatigue undergone during these operations by the 
whole army, from the General down to the meanest sentinel, 
it would be difficult to form an adequate conception. For 
two whole nights and days not a man had closed an eye, 
except such as were cool enough to sleep amidst showers of 
cannon balls, and during the day scarcely a moment had 
been allowed in which we were able so much as to break our 



ANDREW JACKSON. 291 

fast. We retired, therefore, not only baffled and disap- 
pointed, but, in some degree, disheartened and discontented. 
All our plans had as yet proved abortive; even this, upon 
which so much reliance had been placed, was found to be 
of no avail, and it must be confessed that something like 
murmuring began to be heard through camp. And, in 
truth, if ever any army might be permitted to murmur, it 
was this. In landing they had borne great hardships, not 
only without repining, but with cheerfulness; their hopes 
had been excited by false reports as to the practicability of 
the attempt in which they were embarked; and now they 
found themselves entangled amidst difficulties from which 
there appeared to be no escape, except by victory. In their 
attempts upon the enemy's line, however, they had been 
twice foiled ; in artillery they perceived themselves to be so 
greatly overmatched that their own could hardly assist 
them ; their provisions, being derived wholly from the fleet, 
were both scanty and coarse, and their rest was continually 
broken. For not only did the cannon and mortars from 
the main of the enemy's position play unremittingly upon 
them, both day and night, but they were likewise exposed to 
a deadly fire from the opposite bank of the river, where no 
less than eighteen pieces of artillery were now mounted, and 
swept the entire line of our encampment. Besides all this, 
to undertake the duty of a picket was as dangerous as to go 
into action. Parties of American sharpshooters harassed 
and disturbed those appointed to that service from the time 
they took possession of their posts until they were relieved, 
whilst to light fires at night was impossible, because they 
served but as certain marks for the enemy's gunners. I 
repeat, therefore, that a little murmuring could not be won- 
dered at." 

This is the British account of Jackson's great victory of 
the I St of January. 

The period of Jackson's life from the time he entered 
New Orleans, on the 2d of December, 18 14, until he fought 
the battle of the 8th of January, 181 5, about forty-three 
days, has been generally regarded by the public as an inter- 
regnum in his military career. 



292 i-iPE. AND TIMES OF 

Jackson's genius in war was displayed in his Natchez 
campaign, in the Creek War, at Mobile, and in his Pensacola 
campaign, and in the great battle of the 8th. Lord Welling- 
ton said his Creek Campaign immortalized him ; but in the 
forty-three days, obscured, almost completely overshadowed 
""'by his great triumph on the 8th, when carefully considered, 
will be found his transcendent genius. 

The final great battle was an event in war which stands 
out before the world as a milestone on the great highway of 
time, to be seen by all who will turn and look ; but on the 
part of the Commanding General it was the genius of one 
day, one great act, one great deed. A single display of 
genius may be misleading ; conditions in a great battle may 
sometimes turn the scale without genius. But there can be 
no mistaking the genius of a man who can go into a city in 
the throes of a deadly conflict, subdue the hostile, harmonize 
the disaffected, restrain the lawless, give confidence to the 
faltering, quicken the step of friends, and convert the whole 
into a military camp in a few days; and then bring an 
army, improvised by himself, without help from his Govern- 
ment; an army whose inspiration is confidence — confidence 
in the one single man who leads them ; an army of citizens, 
an army from the field and the shop, an army of volunteers, 
an army whose patriotism is quickened by the genius of him 
who calls them. 

There can be no mistaking the genius of the man who 
can, by his asking, summon such an army from his own 
State, his fellow citizens — men who are citizens and not 
soldiers, not of the army, not inured to war ; citizens who 
will obey his call, cross a wilderness or improvise boats and 
descend a river, and when reaching their beloved leader, 
half-clad and half-armed, without a word, on an hour's 
notice, obey his commands, attack in the open field in the 
night, with hunters' guns and hunters' knives, an army 
made up of Wellington's soldiers of double their number, 



ANDREW JACKSON. 293 

and drive it into hiding, and so daze it as to be able to build 
breastworks before he recovers; and then five days after 
renew the punishment, and three days after increase it — so 
crippling, confounding, and discouraging this proud army 
of old England that when the final struggle comes it is 
retreating in twenty-five minutes after the first gun is fired 
— an army whipped before the great battle commences. 
There is no debating the -genius of such a man. 



294 LIFE AND TIMES OF 



chapte:r XXIV. 

THE BATTLE OF THE FIRST OF JANUARY STILL VICTORY 

A TERRIBLE WOUND MAKES LIFETIME FRIENDS JACK- 

SON's two ''"backdowns" THE KENTUCKY TROOPS 

THE ENEMY REINFORCED JANUARY 7TH ALL DONE 

THAT COULD BE; JACKSON READY AND COMPOSED 

THIS GOVERNMENT HAS NEVER LAID A SLAB OVER HIS 
GRAVE. 



A 



PLEASING incident, illustrative of the noble and 
gentle traits of humanity, which had its origin In 
the battle of the ist of January, may serve as an 
agreeable relief to the narrative of deadly conflicts between 
hostile armies, which the chapters I am now writing show. 
Among the loyal citizens of New Orleans who rallied to 
the support of Jackson when he reached the city were two 
young men, Judah Touro and Bezin D. Shepherd. They 
were marchants. Mr. Touro had come from Massachusetts, 
and Mr. Shepherd from Virginia. They enrolled them- 
selves for service under General Jackson, and reported for 
duty. Mr. Touro was attached as a private to the Louisiana 
Militia, and Mr. Shepherd to Captain Ogden's horse troop. 
Commodore Patterson asked and obtained an order to have 
Mr. Shepherd transferred to him, and made him one of his 
aides. During the terrible cannonade of the ist of January, 
and when even the bravest accepted shelter from flying 
missiles, Mr. Touro volunteered his services to carry shot 
and shell from the magazine to Humphrey's Battery, and 
while the missiles flew around him he fearlessly performed 
the dangerous work he had chosen. In the course of the 
day he was struck on the thigh by a twelve-pound shot, 



ANDREW JACKSON. 295 

inflicting a ghastly wound, which tore off a large portion of 
the flesh. 

About this time Commodore Patterson sent his aide, 
Shepherd, with special orders across the river to the main 
army ; and on reaching the bank he met a friend, who told 
him his friend Touro was dead. Inquiring where he was, 
Shepherd was informed that he had been taken to an old 
building in the rear of Jackson's headquarters. Forgetting 
his orders, Mr. Shepherd went immediately to the place and 
found he was not dead, but, as the surgeon said, in a dying 
condition. Disregarding what the surgeon said. Shepherd 
got a cart, put him in it, administered stimulants, and took 
him to his own house. He then procured nurses, and by 
the closest attention Mr. Touro's life was saved. Mr. 
Shepherd returned late in the day, having performed his 
mission, to find Commodore Patterson in a bad humor, and, 
speaking severely to him, the latter said : "Commodore, you 
can hang or shoot me, and it will be all right ; but my best 
friend needed my assistance, and nothing on earth could 
have induced me to neglect him." 

Hearing all, the Commodore was reconciled. 

These men both became millionaires and both lived into 
old age. Mr. Touro was always known as "the Israelite 
without guile." He died in 1854, leaving an immense 
estate, giving one-half of it to charities — charities selected 
with great discrimination — and the entire other half he 
gave to the man who had saved his life. Mr. Shepherd 
appropriated almost the entire half given to him in improv- 
ing and beautifying the street on which they had both lived, 
and it is, and long has been, known as "Touro Street the 
Beautiful." 

After the battle of the ist of January, which was Sunday, 
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday were days of 
intense anxiety; there was no sign of the British army 
moving, and the question with General Jackson was (he 



296 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

having driven the enemy under the hill in the night battle 
of the 23d, and then driven him from the line of defense on 
the 28th and on the ist of January, both times with great 
loss), What will he do? Will the general in command 
make another attack on the line, or seek some other mode 
of getting into the city? 

It was known to General Jackson that about this time the 
British army was reinforced with 1,700 men, under Major 
General Lambert. On the 4th, the long-looked-for Ken- 
tucky troops, 2,300, under General Thomas and General 
Adair, arrived. General Jackson had counted much on the 
Kentucky troops. His old friend, Isaac Shelby, who was 
Governor at the time, was himself a great soldier, and 
thoroughly in sympathy with Jackson in the great struggle 
by which he was hoping to save the Southwest from inva- 
sion and subjugation; but it was published that Kentucky, 
as a State, had men ready to fight, but no resources to arm 
and equip them, and what was done was by private subscrip- 
tion. In the long march which these troops had made 
without winter clothing, with much bad weather, and 
greatly distressed for a supply of food until they captured 
a boat-load of flour, they reached New Orleans in a deplor- 
able condition. All the biographers of General Jackson, as 
well as the author of "Jackson and New Orleans," describe 
them as destitution itself. One of them says they were 
without the means of cooking their food, as they had only 
one small cooking vessel to every eighty men. 

Mr. Parton says : 

"On Wednesday morning, January 4, the long-looked-for 
Kentuckians, two thousand two hundred and fifty in 
number, reached New Orleans. Seldom has a reinforce- 
ment been so anxiously expected ; never did the arrival of 
one create keener disappointment. They were so ragged 
that the men, as they marched shivering through the streets, 
were observed to hold together their garments with their 



ANDREW JACKSON. 297 

hands to cover their nakedness; and what was worse, 
because beyond remedy, not one man in ten was well armed, 
and only one man in three had any arms at all. It was a 
bitter moment for General Jackson when he heard this; 
and it was a bitter thing for those brave and devoted men, 
who had formerly hoped to find in the abundance of New 
Orleans an end of their exposure and destitution, to learn 
that the General had not a musket, a blanket, a tent, a gar- 
ment, a rag, to give them. A body of Louisiana Militia, 
too, who had arrived a day or two before from Baton 
Rouge, were in a condition only less deplorable. Here was 
a force of nearly three thousand men, every man of whom 
was pressingly wanted, paralyzed and useless for want of 
those arms that had been sent on their way down the river 
sixty days before. It would have fared ill wnth the captain 
of that loitering boat if he had chanced to arrive just them, 
for the General was wToth exceedingly. Up the river go 
new expresses to bring him down in irons. They bring 
him at last, the astonished man, but days and days too late; 
the war was over. The old soldiers of this campaign 
mention that the General's observations upon the character 
of the hopeless captain, his parentage, and upon various 
portions of his mortal and immortal frame, were much too 
forcible for repetition in these piping times of peace." 

Never did women work more untiringly than did the 
ladies of New Orleans work to make some clothing for 
these almost clothless soldiers ; but the guns were lacking, 
and could not be had. These men had never had one day 
of drilling; they were totally without experience in war. 
No proper defense has been made for what took place on 
the 8th, and which led to General Jackson's hasty report to 
the President on the 9th, saying the "Kentuckians inglo- 
riously fled." In an order issued and read to the army next 
day. General Jackson qualifies his report and gives the Ken- 
tuckians credit for being brave soldiers. This is about the 
only thing General Jackson ever took back. 



298 I-IPE AND TIMES OF 

In one of the following chapters on the great battle the 
facts will be given, because it is due to the history of this 
great State, and of the Kentuckian from the time Boone 
went there down to the present time, to say that there is one 
thing that he does know how to do — that is, fight; and 
while like other men he may have man's ordinary weak- 
nesses, there is one infirmity he is free from — he is not a 
coward. 

While it is true, as far as I know, that General Jackson 
never took back anything he said, except his words in his 
report to the President that the Kentuckians in the great 
battle of the 8th "ingloriously fled," it is true that on one 
occasion he did back down, "Back down" is a very hard 
saying to apply to "Old Hickory," but he did. Among the 
many good anecdotes in the life of the great hero, all of 
which I have omitted so far in these articles, there is none 
probably better than the "back down" anecdote, and it may 
be a relief from the scenes of war to tell it. 

General Jackson probably had more friends that he would 
fight for and who would fight for him than any man known 
to the American people ; it is also true that he had his ene- 
mies, and about as large a crop as any other public man. 
Among his thousands and thousands of friends, any one of 
whom he would have fought for, he had some special friends 
who were dearer to him than life. Among these were 
Coffee, Carroll, Gordon, and William P. Anderson. The 
first three had been drawn to him as officers under him in 
the Creek War and at New Orleans in their devotion to 
him and their gallantry in war. The fourth. Col. William P. 
Anderson, a business man of high character and great influ- 
ence in Tennessee in its early history, had long been the 
business partner of Jackson in locating and perfecting titles 
to land, and Jackson had great respect for him — indeed, 
was much attached to him ; but, like Jackson, Anderson had 
his enemies. 



ANDREW JACKSON. 299 

One day after the wars were over, down at the old Inn on 
the west side of the Square, where Jackson and his com- 
rades were wont to meet and talk over the past, Jackson 
heard a man, whom he did not know, abusing Colonel 
Anderson — saying very hard things about him, going into 
detail, making out quite a bill of particulars. After listen- 
ing to him, Jackson went off and wrote down what he said 
about Anderson, reciting the several charges made, and then 
went to the man and said to him : "Sir, I don't know you, 
but I listened to what you said about my friend, Colonel 
Anderson, and I have written it down ; and, sir, I want you 
to sign it, so there will be no mistake about it." The 
accuser happened to be one who had some idea of his rights, 
and promptly replied : "Sir, what I said I said, and I shall 
stand by it ; but I am not going to sign any papers." 

Whereupon General Jackson turned to his friend, Col. 
Thomas Kennedy Gordon, who was sitting in the room 
(Gordon was the man who, in the Creek War, when the 
mutiny took place and when Jackson said, "If only two men 
will stay with me, I will stay here and die in the wilderness," 
stepped out and said, "General, I will stay with you"), and 
said : "That man over there said some hard things in the 
company of gentlemen about my old friend. Col. William P. 
Anderson; and I wrote down what he said and asked him 
to sign it, and he refuses to do it ; and I have come to ask 
what I shall do about it." It was handed to Gordon, and 
he read it carefully and said, "And you say. General, he 
won't sign it." "No," said the irate General, "he positively 
refuses to sign it, and I come for your advice." Gordon 
again carefully read the paper, and repeated his surprise 
that the man refused to sign it, but said, "General, I don't 
care to shoulder that fellow's responsibility, but this paper 
has got so much truth in it that somebody ought to sign it, 
and I will just sign it myself." The curtain fell and Jack- 
son retired, but the same everlasting friend of Gordon. 



300 i-JPE AND TIMES OF 

The days of waiting between the battle of the ist and 8th 
of January were days of intense anxiety with General 
Jackson. The new troops from Kentucky could be of little 
or no service to him, while on the other hand the enemy 
had been reinforced by 1,700 soldiers, under Major General 
Lambert, all of whom had seen service. Old guns, gathered 
up, were being repaired as fast as possible, but this 
amounted to but little, for, including the Kentuckians and 
the Louisiana Militia just arrived, Jackson had nearly three 
thousand men who could be of no service, as his report to 
the Secretary of War shows. 

The arrival of Major General Lambert, with 1,700 men, 
revived the spirits of the British army. What General 
Packenham was going to do was the question. Five days 
after the battle of the ist, Jackson became satisfied General 
Packenham was going to renew the attack on his lines. 
Having been beaten in the open field and repulsed and driven 
back in two general assaults on his lines, Jackson was in 
doubt up to that time whether it would be a renewal or an 
attempted flank movement, getting in his rear. During 
these days, using some of his best men, he was making 
observations, which, on the 6th, satisfied him a renewal of 
the attack on his lines was to be made. Though in doubt, 
there had been no let up in the work of strengthening his 
fortifications and putting his guns in position. It was said 
his pale face lighted up when his trusted reconnoiterers 
brought the unmistakable evidence of an immediate attack. 
This was what he desired. 

The new scheme of General Packenham, as the "Sub- 
altern" in his final report says, "was worthy, for its bold- 
ness, of the school in which Sir Edward had studied his 
profession. It was determined to divide the army — to 
send part across the river, who would seize the enemy's 
guns and turn them on themselves, whilst the remainder 
should at the same time make a general assault along the 



ANDREW JACKSON. 301 

whole entrenchment. But before his plan could be put into 
execution it would be necessary to cut a canal across the 
entire neck of land from the Bayou de Catiline to the river, 
of sufficient width and depth to admit of boats being 
brought up from the lake. Upon this arduous undertaking 
were the troops immediately employed. Being divided into 
four companies, they labored by turns, day and night; one 
party relieving another after a stated number of hours, in 
such order as that the work should never be entirely deserted. 
The fatigue undergone during the prosecution of this 
attempt no words can sufficiently describe; yet it was pur- 
sued without repining, and, at length, by unremitting exer- 
tions, they succeeded in effecting their purpose by the 6th 
of January." 

Saturday, the 7th of January, was, in one sense, a quiet 
day with General Jackson. All that could be done had been 
done, and late in the evening he asked his old friend. General 
Adair, who had arrived only three days before, to go with 
him and look at the fortifications. Mr. Parton says that 
General Adair, after looking at the long line of hastily con- 
structed and irregular fortifications, had no great opinion 
of Jackson's generalship, as he afterwards expressed himself. 

These fortifications, it will be remembered, including the 
ditch and the embankment, had all been made in fourteen 
days, fighting three battles while doing it, besides carrying 
on an irregular warfare every night. After going from 
battery to battery. General Jackson asked General Adair 
what he thought of the situation. General Adair said: 

"There is one way, and but one way, in which we can 
hope to defend them. We must have a strong corps of 
reserve to meet the enemy's main attack, wherever it may 
be. No single part of the lines is strong enough to resist 
the united force of the enemy. But, with a strong column 
held in our rear, ready to advance upon any threatened 
point, we can beat them off." 



302 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

"During the 2d and 3d," wrote Commodore Patterson to 
the Secretary of the Navy, "I landed from the ship and 
mounted, as the former ones, on the banks of the river, four 
more twelve-pounders, and erecting a furnace for heating 
shot, to destroy a number of buildings which intervened 
between General Jackson's lines and the camp of the enemy 
and occupied by him. On the evening of the 4th I suc- 
ceeded in firing a number of them and some rice stacks by 
my shot, which the enemy attempted to extinguish, notwith- 
standing the heavy fire which I kept up, but which at length 
compelled them to desist. On the 6th and 7th I erected 
another furnace and mounted on the banks of the river two 
more twenty-pounders, which had been brought up by the 
exertions of Colonel Caldwell, of the drafted militia of the 
State, and brought within and mounted on the intrench- 
ments on this side of the river one twelve-pounder, in addi- 
tion to which General Morgan, commanding the militia on 
this side, planted two brass six-pound field pieces in his lines, 
which were incomplete, having been commenced only on 
the 4th. These three pieces were the only cannon on the 
firing lines. All the others being mounted on the bank of 
the river, with a view to aid the right of General Jackson's 
lines on the opposite shore, and to flank the enemy should 
they attempt to march up the road leading along the levee, 
or erect batteries on the same, of course could render no aid 
in defense of General Morgan's lines. My battery was 
manned in part from the crew of the ship, and in part by 
militia detailed for that service by General Morgan, as I had 
not seamen enough to fully man them." 
-^ That General Jackson, cool as he was on the evening of 
the 7th, was a most determined man, and with the coolest 
desperation had made up his mind that the morrow must 
bring victory or the sacrifice of himself and his army in the 
struggle. 

The manner in which the war had been conducted by the 



ANDREW JACKSON. 303 

British armies in the North — the vandaHsm in burning the 
pubHc buildings at Washington, the murder of prisoners at 
Frenchtown, the savage-hke exhibitions of Hcentious brutal- 
ity of the soldiers at some of the towns where they entered 
in the campaign of 1813-14, had filled the coolest head in 
America with a zeal that was as resistless as a forest fire, 
and Jackson on the night of the 7th, cool as he seemed, 
"meant victory or death" in a sense that was neither fiction 
nor poetry. 

That Jackson knew from prisoners captured, papers 
found on them, of the countersign given to the soldiers by 
General Packenham, may not be sufficiently established; 
but he did know what had been done in other cities in the 
North where the army was displaying its savage traits with 
a licensed freedom not known among the civilized nations 
of Europe. But Mr. Reid, who was in Jackson's army and 
one of his aides, and Mr. Eaton, who wrote a life of Jackson 
in 1 81 7, and Mr. Waldo, who wrote his life in 1818, took 
pains to get up the proof on this national shame. In the 
"Life of Jackson" by Eaton and Reid, they say : 

"Inducements were held out, than which nothing more 
inviting could be ofifered to an infuriated soldiery. Let it 
be remembered of that gallant but misguided General, who 
has been so much deplored by the British nation, that to the 
cupidity of his soldier he promised the wealth of the city 
as a recompense for their gallantry and desperation ; while, 
with brutal licentiousness, they were to revel in lawless 
indulgence, and triumph uncontrolled, over female inno- 
cence. Scenes like these our nation, dishonored and 
insulted, had already witnessed ; she had witnessed them at 
Hampton and Havre-de-Grace ; but it was reserved for her 
yet to learn that an officer of high standing, polished, gen- 
erous and brave, should induce his soldiers to acts of daring 
valor — permit them, as a reward, to insult, injure, and 
debase those whom all mankind, even savages, reverence 
and respect. The history of Europe, since civilized warfare 



304 ^iPE- AND TIMES OF 

began, is challenged to afford an instance of such gross 
depravity — such wanton outrage on the morals and dignity 
of society. English writers may deny the correctness of 
the charge — it certainly interests them to do so — but its 
authenticity is too well established to admit of doubt, while 
its criminality is increased from being the act of a people 
who hold themselves up to surrounding nations as examples 
of everything that is correct and proper. 

"The events of this day afford abundant evidence of the 
liberality of the American soldiers, and show a striking 
difference in the troops of the two nations. While one were 
allured to acts of bravery and duty by the promised pillage 
and plunder of the inhabitants, and the commission of 
crimes abhorrent in the sight of earth and heaven, the other 
fought but for his country, and, having repelled her assail- 
ants, instantly forgot all enmity, viewed his fallen foe as a 
brother, and hastened to assist him, even at the hazard of 
his own life." 

And Mr. Waldo, in his "Life of Jackson," speaking of 
the 1,500 dead and dying British piled up on the field after 
the battle of the 8th, says : 

"Humanity must weep over such a scene; and in the 
death and anguish of the comparatively innocent soldiers of 
England, for'a season forget the wicked cause in which they 
fell — the cause of tyranny against freedom. Even the 
patriotic soldiers of our beloved republic, in beholding the 
banks of the majestic Mississippi converted into an out- 
spread sepulcher for veteran foemen, who had one common 
origin with themselves, must have dropped a manly tear. 
But how soon will reflection compel them to pour forth the 
most indignant imprecations against the British Govern- 
ment, whose systematic injustice first occasioned the war, 
and against the British officers, whose vandalism and bar- 
barity even charity itself can never forgive. It must crim- 
son with a blush every Englishman, who reads the history 
of the nineteenth century, when he finds it recorded that an 
officer, the pride of England, confident of capturing one of 
the finest cities in America, gave as a countersign, upon the 



ANDREW JACKSON. 305 

day his army was to enter it, 'Booty and Beauty.' The 
hard earnings of patient industry were to be ravished from 
the defenseless citizens, and their wives and daughters to be 
subjected to the diaboHcal hist of a full-gorged soldiery. 
The innocent and accomplished females of New Orleans, 
who had spent days of labor and nights of watchfulness in 
alleviating the toils of their valiant countrymen while sta- 
tioned under the banners of the republic, were to suffer 
more than ten thousand deaths could inflict before the very 
eyes of those who had blessed them for their bounty, but 
who could no longer extend to them protection. Well may 
the English reader exclaim with an ancient poet, 'Quis 
temper et a lachrivmis, talia fando' ('who can refrain from 
tears in relating such deeds') ; and well may the patriotic 
sons of Columbia, when thinking of their implacable enemy, 
resolve to be : 

'Fire to fire, flint to flint, and to outface 
The brow of bragging horror.' " 

English writers, without evidence, have denied the 
charges here made, but they were established; the counter- 
sign — the crying shame of a great nation — was found in 
the pockets of dead soldiers after the battle of the 8th pf 
January. 

Who saved New Orleans from the awful scene that 
awaited a triumph over Jackson? It was the immortal 
hero and his Tennesseans, the men who came at his bidding. 

There is no reflection on other soldiers in this great 
struggle. All did their duty, but the facts show that 
Jackson was literally without an army until the Tennesseans 
got there. I beg to say, and I would write it in letters, 
were it in my power, that would live as long as the name 
of Tennessee is spoken, that Tennesseans won this unprece- 
dented victory. That the reader may see the Tennessean 
as he appeared, and as he was, in the second great struggle 
for American freedom, I give here a description of Coffee's 
command, as the author of "Jackson and New Orleans" 

20 



306 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

saw it. It would answer as well for Carroll's command; 
in fact, for the whole 5,300 independent volunteer fighters : 

"Coffee," says this graphic writer, "was a man of noble 
aspect, tall and herculean in frame, yet not destitute of a 
certain natural dignity and ease of manner. Though of 
great height and weight, his appearance on horseback, 
mounted on a fine Tennessee thoroughbred, was striking 
and impressive. His soldiers, who had been hardened by 
long service, possessed remarkable endurance, and that 
useful quality of soldiers of taking care of themselves in an 
emergency. They were all practiced marksmen, who 
thought nothing of bringing down a squirrel from the top 
of the loftiest tree with their rifles. Their appearance, 
however, was not very military in their woolen hunting 
shirts of dark or dingy color, and copperas-dyed pantaloons, 
made, both cloth and garments, at home by their wives, 
mothers, and sisters ; with slouching wool hats, some com- 
posed of the skins of foxes and raccoons, the spoils of the 
chase, to which they were addicted almost from infancy; 
with belts of untanned deerskin, in which were stuck hunt- 
ing knives and tomahawks ; with their long, unkempt hair 
and unshorn faces, Coffee's men were not calculated to 
please the eyes of the martinet, of one accustomed to regard 
neatness and primness as essential virtues of the good 
soldier. The British were not far wrong when they spoke 
of them as a posse comitatus, wearing broad beavers, armed 
with long duck guns. But the sagacious judge of human 
nature could not fail to perceive beneath their rude exterior 
those qualities which, in defensive warfare at least, are far 
more formidable than the practiced skill and discipline of 
regulars." 

These brave Tennesseans, in the estimation of New 
Orleans, were something more than a posse comitatus after 
they saved that grand city. Clinton Ross, in Chalmette, 
says a British officer, who had been taken prisoner and was 
using his tongue freely in a smart way, sending his compli- 
ments to General Jackson in reference to taking care of his 



ANDREW JACKSON. 307 

baggage for a few days, evidently was not pleased with the 
looks of the "comitatus" crowd, when Mademoiselle de 
Renior said to him : "I'd rather be the wife of a Tennessean, 
roughly clad as he is, than a countess." And the author 
says her eyes flashed finely as she delivered that tribute to 
the good fighters who had marched fifteen hundred miles to 
be with Jackson at New Orleans. 

If ever a chastisement of a proud nation came in time, it 
is to be found in "Jackson Day" at New Orleans — a nation 
that measures the rights of other peoples by the number of 
great ships and big guns they can bring to their defense. 
And if ever a country needed a living witness of the abiding 
martial spirit in the people, it was when Jackson at New 
Orleans met the criminals from Frenchtown, Hampton and 
Havre-de-Grace, and from the vandalism at Washington. 
Will not Tennessee build a monument to Jackson and his 
brave soldiers? 

The descendants of a race of men, whose deeds of valor 
and intellectual prowess put them at the very front, we must 
be painfully conscious of our indifference to their memories. 
Jackson's tomb is in decay. A few noble women are trying 
to rescue it, working with but little support to preserve and 
perpetuate the reputation of the living, for Jackson is 
immortal. While Packenham, the vanquished, whose life- 
less body Jackson sent back to St. Paul, is made the subject 
of England's greatest appreciation of public services by a 
work of art for all England to see, Jackson, the victor, who 
with raw troops freed his country of an invading army, 
which afterward, under Wellington at Waterloo, conquered 
the world's conqueror, is by the Government for which he 
did so much left, so far as it is concerned, without a stone to 
mark his resting place. And his own State, whose very 
name he immortalized, niggardly commits his memory to a 
few loving women, who, like the women after the cruci- 
fixion, in sadness and sorrow, looked after the body, are 



308 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

doing what they can to rescue the tomb of Tennessee's 
immortal hero. 

To Jackson and his heroes Tennessee must some day 
erect a monument that will silently tell the story of heroism 
as long as children shall stop to look. 



ANDREW JACKSON. 309 



CHAPTER XXV. 

THE PRESENT GENERATION KNOWS BUT LITTLE OF THE 

WAR OF l8l2 PARTON ON THE FIRST THIRTY-SEVEN 

DAYS OF 1 815 THE TRUTH TOLD AND PARTON HAS 

CREDIT THE AWFUL SUSPENSE AT WASHINGTON 

JACKSON AND THE HALL OF FAME. 

MEN of the present generation, as a rule, do not 
know the history of the War of 1812. They do 
not know that one man from the Southwest, by 
one speech in Congress, brought on the war as the only 
relief from national humiliation and disgrace by the bullying 
spirit of both England and Frence; one wanting to fight 
Cornwallis' defeat over, and the other mad because we did 
not become its ally in the war with England. As a rule, 
they do not know that Jackson, with an army of Tennes- 
seans, raised by himself, armed and equipped and paid by 
the State of Tennessee, by conquering England's ally in the 
Southwest — the Creek Nation — made the treaty of Ghent 
possible. As a rule, they know that Jackson, with Tennes- 
seans mainly, whipped the battle of New Orleans, but they 
do not know the genius, the unequaled genius, displayed in 
preparing for that battle, and especially in demoralizing the 
British army before the final issue came. With the purpose 
of showing the scope of the great victory and its effect upon 
the entire nation, I make here an extended quotation from 
Mr. Parton's "Life of Jackson." This is the sketch : 

"If an old man of perfect memory were asked to name 
the time when the prospects of the Republic were shrouded 
in the deepest gloom, and the largest number of people 
despaired of its future, his answer, I think, would be : The 



310 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

first thirty-seven days of the year 1815.' It was the dead 
of winter. Whatever evils the war had brought on the 
country were then most acutely and most generally felt. 
The Capitol of the nation was in ruins. Congress was as 
factious, ill-tempered, and unmanageable as parliamentary 
bodies invariably are when there is most need of united and 
efficient action. The twenty-six staid and respectable old 
gentlemen, styled the 'Hartford Convention,' had recently 
met, and the Administration papers were denouncing them 
as traitors, and filling the country with the wildest misrep- 
resentations of their character and designs. And it must 
be owned that the tone of the New England press was such 
as almost to justify such misrepresentations. 'Is there,' 
said the Boston Gazette, 'a Federalist, a patriot in America, 
who conceives it his duty to shed his blood for Bonaparte, 
for Madison and Jefferson, and that host of ruffians in Con- 
gress who have set their faces against us for years, and 
spirited up the brutal part of the populace to destroy us? 
Not one. Shall we, then, any longer be held in slavery and 
driven to desperate poverty by such a graceless faction?' 
'No more taxes from New England,' said many editors, 
'till the Administration makes peace,' as though the badgered 
and distracted Administration had not been directing its 
best energies to that very object for nearly a year past. 
■^■^'The great British expedition, moreover, so long muster- 
ing in the West Indies, so long delayed, cast a vague but 
prodigious, shadow before it. The inactivity of the enemy 
in the North was itself a cause for alarm. Gallatin's warn- 
ing letter of June, 181 4, had put New York, Philadelphia, 
and Baltimore on their guard, but as the autumn passed 
without the reappearance of a hostile force in the Northern 
waters, the conviction gained ground that something over- 
whelming was in contemplation against the defenseless 
South and Southwest. Portentious paragraphs from the 
newspapers of the West Indies and Canada confirmed his 
opinion. In October, General Wilkinson felt so sure that 
New Orleans would fall into the hands of the enemy, that 
he wrote successively to three of his friends there, and 
finally to Secretary Monroe, urging the instant removal of 
certain plans and charts which he had left in the town, and 



ANDREW JACKSON. 311 

which would be of fatal value, he thought, to the British 
General. 

"At that day, the reader must keep in mind. New Orleans 
was as many days' journey from Washington as New York 
now is from San Francisco (1,859 miles). Fancy the 
whole country in breathless expectation today of an attack 
upon San Francisco by a vast armament that had been for 
months gathering at the Sandwich Islands, San Francisco 
left, necessarily, to its own resources, with some vaguely 
known Indian fighter from the mines in command of its 
militia. With what feelings should we read, in such a 
posture of affairs, the heading in the newspapers, 'Fifteen 
days later from California.' This was 1859. 

"It so chanced that the 8th of January was the day on 
which it was first whispered about Washington that the 
President had received news of the arrival of the British 
fleet at the mouth of the Mississippi. The National Intelli- 
gencer of the day before contained 'a rumor' that a fleet 
with 14,000 troops on board had been seen off the coast of 
Florida. The next issue of that paper, January 9th, 
announced as a certainty that this fleet had reached the 
coast of Louisiana. From that time, the eyes of the country, 
as the papers of the day expressed it, were fixed upon New 
Orleans, not hopefully. It is not an overstatement of the 
case to say that there was not one well-informed man in the 
Northern States who believed that New Orleans could be 
successfully defended. The Administration papers tried to 
put the best face upon the matter, but all the consolation 
that even the Intelligencer could afford its readers was con- 
tained in this mild remark : 'Appearances justify the 
expectation of the British expedition not being ineffectually 
resisted.' The Federal Republican, of Georgetown, D. C., 
commented upon the news thus: ''This great city (New 
Orleans) has shared the fate of Washington, or General 
Jackson has immortalized himself.' The Western members 
of Congress, some of whom knew General Jackson person- 
ally, said, with great confidence, that whatever the result 
of the campaign might be, Jackson would do all that man 
could do to defend the city. Tennessee men went further 
than this, and offered to bet on his success. 



312 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

"After a week of gossip and foreboding, came news of 
the gunboat battle and its disastrous result, also rumors of 
a great armament hovering on the Atlantic coast. 'We are 
a lost country,' said the Federal papers in doleful concert. 
*A wicked Administration has ruined us. New Orleans 
having fallen an easy prey, the British General will leave a 
few acclimated black regiments to garrison that city, and 
bring the Wellington heroes around to the Chesapeake. 
Baltimore will again be overrun. Philadelphia and New, 
Orleans will next be attacked, and who shall say with what 
result? See to what a pass Jefferson and French Democ- 
racy have brought a deluded country.' The Democratic 
papers still strove, though with evident faint heart, to talk 
hopefully, a fact which the Federal editors adduced as the 
very extreme of party perversity. 'They have ruined the 
country, and yet in this last dire extremity they will not 
own it.' 

"January 21, the Intelligencer published accounts of the 
landing of General Keane, and of the night battle of Decem- 
ber 23. But, unluckily, the news was like a continued story 
in the newspapers, which leaves off at the precise moment 
when the reader gasps with desire to have the tale proceed. 
The mail closed at New Orleans at daylight on the morning 
of the 24th. No dispatch was received from the General, 
therefore, but merely some hasty letters from people in New 
Orleans, particularly one already given in these pages, 
which left the army in the field expecting to renew the 
combat at dawn of day. Still it was encouraging to know 
that the city had not fallen, and that Jackson had so 
decisively announced his presence to a confident foe. 

•""Then followed ten weary days and nights of suspense, 
without one word from the seat of war. Bad news, too, 
and worse rumors from other quarters ; news of the capture 
of the frigate President, b. few days out of New York ; news 
of the appearance of a great fleet off Savannah, the town 
expecting assault from three thousand troops, martial law 
proclaimed, and universal alarm news of the dangerous 
illness of Secretary Monroe, worn out by the anxious toil 
of his position; dreadful rumors respecting New England 
and the Hartford Convention; rumors that the President 
had received the very worst news from New Orleans, but 



ANDREW JACKSON. 313 

concealed it for purposes of his own; rumors that the 
British had made 'fearful havoc' among Jackson's troops; 
rumors that Charleston was threatened; rumors of British 
men-of-war off Montauk Point, and the capture of fisher- 
men in Long Island Sound. To the gossips of that day, the 
country must have seemed hemmed in on every side by 
unknown fleets at the North, by indubitable Wellington 
heroes at the South. 'Not a fishing smack,' said a Federal 
paper, 'can venture out of harbor in the East without being 
immediately picked up by the enemy's cruisers.' 'See what 
Jefferson, and French Democracy,' etc. 
"" "To add to the gloom that prevailed in Washington and 
elsewhere, a snowstorm of remarkable violence and extent 
set in on the 23d of January, and continued for three days. 
The roads were blocked up in every direction, far and near. 
On the last day of the month, three Southern mails were 
overdue at Washington, and every soul in the place was 
worn out with mere hunger for news. A mail struggled 
in at last through the snow, and brought simply dispatches 
from General Jackson detailing the gunboat battle and the 
night attack of the 23d. The dispatches were comforting, 
however, as they made certain what was before uncertain, 
and were instinct with Jackson's own resolution and confi- 
dence. A few hours later another mail arrived with news 
of the grand reconnaissance of December 28, and of the 
battle of the batteries on the ist of January; but also of 
General Packenham's arrival with exaggerated reinforce- 
ments. 'New Orleans is not yet taken,' said the Western 
members and the Republican editors. 'It is merely a ques- 
tion of time,' replied the Federalists; 'the next mail will 
finish New Orleans and you.' 

"During the next few days the most intense and painful 
solicitude prevailed in all circles; a solicitude in which 
patriotism, partisan and humane feelings were strangely 
blended. Few people in Washington could more than hope 
for Jackson's final triumph, and that faintly. C. J. Inger- 
soll. Republican member of Congress, tells us that the 
evening before the arrival of the next mail he was closeted 
with a naval officer, when the standing topic of the seige of 
New Orleans was amply discussed between them. Maps 
were examined, the means of defense were enumerated, 



314 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

comparisons of the contending armies made. The officer 
demonstrated to his own satisfaction, and probably con- 
vinced Mr. Ingersoll, that the defense of the city was 
impossible. 

"The next day Mr. Ingersoll, in his character of Admin- 
istration member, was listening in silent ecstacy to the read- 
ing of General Jackson's dispatch, recounting the victory 
of January 8th, which Mr. Madison had sent down to the 
House in order that his political friends might enjoy the 
first reading of it. How many things have been demon- 
strated to be impossible just before they were done! 

"Washington was wild with delight. The Mayor, while 
yet the news was only known to official persons, issued his 
proclamation recommending the illumination of the city. 
That evening the town was blazing with light, and the 
whole population was abroad, now thronging about the 
White House, cheering the President, then surging around 
the houses of the secretaries and the residences of the lead- 
ing supporters of the war, rending the air with shouts. 
Modern readers vividly remember the news of Buena Vista, 
and can imagine the scenes which the saloons and streets 
of Washington presented on February 4, 181 5. The next 
issue of the National Intelligencer cannot be glanced over 
to this day without exciting in the mind something of the 
feeling which is wont to express itself by three times three 
and one cheer more. The great news was headed in the 
moderate Intelligencer's largest type : 'Almost Incredible 
Victory.' 

"Then came a brief summary of the events of the 8th; 
how the enemy in prodigious force had attacked our 
intrenchments, and had been repulsed by General Jackson 
and his brave associates with unexampled slaughter. Then 
followed two dispatches from the General, with letters from 
other officers. The entire first page was filled with victory ; 
editorial comments succeeding, joyful, but moderate. On 
the wings of the Intelligencer the news flew over the country, 
kindling everywhere the maddest enthusiasm. 'A general 
illumination,' says John Binns, in his autobiography, 'was 
ordered in Philadelphia. Few, indeed, there were, yet there 
were a few, who, on that night, closed their window- 
shutters and mourned over the defeat of the enemies of their 



ANDREW JACKSON. 315 

country. I had early intelligence of this joyful news, and 
gladly, by an extra, spread it abroad. I put the scene 
painters to work, and had a transparency painted which 
covered nearly the whole front of my house. There had 
been a heavy fall of snow, and there was that evening from 
nine to twelve inches' depth of snow on the ground. That, 
however, did not prevent men, women, and children from 
parading the streets, and delighting their eyes by looking 
at the illuminations and the illuminated transparencies, 
which made the principal streets of our city as light as day. 
My transparency represented General Jackson on horseback 
at the head of his staff, in pursuit of the enemy, with the 
motto, 'This day shall ne'er go by, from this day to the 
ending of the world, but he, in it, shall be remembered.' 

"The opposition journals far surpassed even those of the 
Administration in heaping laudations upon the name of 
Jackson, since they were anxious to keep their readers in 
mind that in the honors of this great triumph the Adminis- 
tration had no share. Jackson, and Jackson alone, aided 
by his gallant troops, had won the battle. To Jackson and 
the army be all the glory ! Who is this Jackson ? Where 
was he born? What State claims him? Where had he 
been all his life? What is his business and standing? To 
such questions as these, uttered by tens of thousands of 
Northern people, who knew little of Jackson but his name, 
editors and correspondents gave such answers as they could 
gather or invent. Wonderful things were told of him. 
'He is a lawyer of Tennessee, the most elegant scholar in 
the Western country.' 'He was born in Ireland.' 'He was 
born in South Carolina.' 'No, he was born in England, 
where his parents and a brother or two are still living, near 
Wolverhampton, where I saw them a few years ago.' But 
all agreed that he had defended New Orleans in a most 
masterly manner, gained the most splendid victory of the 
war, and wrote a perfect model of a clear, eloquent, and 
modest dispatch." 

This statement of Mr. Parton's is gladly published in full, 
and if it were possible I would gladly condone and forgive 
all the misstatements scattered through the book — even 



316 LIFE, AND TIMES OF 

the last chapter, which is a studied perversion of Jackson's 
Hfe; and especially do I overlook the misstatement in this 
extract, vi^hich is more than an insinuation — that Mr. 
Livingston did all of Jackson's writing. How any man 
writing the life of General Jackson, and seeing the situation 
as Parton puts it in this extended extract, could get his 
mind made up to write Jackson down an ignoramus, and 
incapable of filling any place of importance, I cannot see. 

It seems to me that Mr. Parton, after he wrote this scene 
— for the whole story is the most marvelous in American 
history — might with loving forgiveness have passed over 
many of the incidents in Jackson's life which he has given 
to the discredit of the hero he here describes. 

After writing this sketch, which is now with pleasure 
incorporated in this book, every reader will say that Mr. 
Parton was capable of writing a book acceptable to the 
American people, and even to the warm, devoted friends of 
General Jackson in the South ; and this sketch taken from 
Parton's "Life of General Jackson," and considered with 
other parts of the book, will necessarily bring up the para- 
doxical statements so often made by Mr. Parton that 
Jackson was self-willed and listened to nobody, and then 
again the repeated statements that one or two men with 
flattery could control him and lead him as they pleased. It 
is but an illustartion that Mr. Parton has done what very 
few men could do — write a book, give it all as truth, and 
make its pages absolutely self -contradictory from start to 
finish ; but, nevertheless, this chapter will be read with great 
interest. It is a picture ; it is a painting ; it is a scene on 
the stage that presents to the mind the most trying period ; 
and the most dreaded crisis with the greatest relief — and 
all done suddenly by one man — that is anywhere to be 
found in the history of this country from the time of the 
first settlement down to this day. 

Certainly no such gloom, no such despondency, no such 



ANDREW JACKSON. 317 

dread of coming news, has ever been seen and felt on this 
continent as was at Washington and throughout the country 
when everybody was waiting to learn what the backwoods 
man from Tennessee had done in the way of arresting, 
checking, or attempting to check a calamity that had swept 
over the North — had visited Bladensburg, Detroit, French- 
town, and finally the Capitol, driving out and taking down 
the flag. It took a brave man to say he hoped that Jackson 
would succeed ; certain great leading facts were known and 
painfully realized by the American people at that time. 
These facts were, briefly : That we had declared war against 
England, substantially over the protest of Mr. Jefferson, 
the ex-President, and Mr. Madison, the then President, 
because they did not believe we had sufficiently recovered 
after the long war of the Revolution to maintain ourselves 
in a contest with England. It was known from one end of 
the country to the other that the war on our side had been 
a war of disasters, and that there was not a ray of light 
from any quarter, except what Jackson had done in the 
Creek Nation, fighting England's most powerful ally, and 
then his battle at Mobile Bay and his capture of Pensacola ; 
and with the many it was not known whether going into a 
Spanish territory, as Jackson did, was going to help us, and 
whether it might not complicate our relations very much. 
It was well known that New England was against war, and 
that the President had constantly been kept in great sus- 
pense as to whether New England's influence would not 
finally turn everything against us. 

It was well known that the English press, such papers as 
the London Times and the London Sun, and the magazines, 
were writing us down as a nation of cowards ready to bring 
on a fight, but too cowardly to go into it and fight it out 
like men. 

It was well known at Washington, through the letters of 
Mr. Adams, Mr. Clay, Mr. Gallatin, and the other commis- 



318 UFE AND TIMES OF 

sioners in Europe, that Napoleon had capitulated, and that 
this released one of the finest armies that the world ever saw 
— the army that had followed Wellington in his campaign 
in Spain, and crossed the Pyrenees Mountains into France; 
and especially by the letter of Mr. Gallatin to the President, 
that a great fleet had been prepared, and that the soldiers 
from Wellington were being organized for a campaign 
against the South, and at the very time news had reached 
Washington that it was believed in England that New 
Orleans had been taken, and, as one of the lords of England 
expressed it in speaking to the King of France, "that the 
Southwest and all the cities on the coast were practically 
prisoners of war in their own country." 

There was not a ray of hope nor the slightest preparation 
for defense anywhere except from this Backwoodsman that 
Madison had made a Major General in the United States 
Army, and that without giving him an army, leaving him 
dependent entirely upon such force as he could raise in his 
own State. Perhaps no great nation ever had a darker day 
than that very day that Mr. Parton describes in this chapter. 

I am not willing to send this chapter to the press without 
giving expression to a feeling of injustice mingled with 
indignation, more keenly felt by two papers received and 
read since I commenced the revision of this chapter, for I 
am now making the second revision of the book. These 
papers are an article in the Nashville Daily News of this 
date — the 5th of May, 1903 — and a letter from a lady in 
New York — both reviewing and complaining of the omis- 
sion in leaving Jackson out of the Hall of Fame. The 
News says: 

*Tt was provided that fifty names should be inscribed on 
the tablets at the beginning, and five names each succeeding 
fifth year until the year 2000, when the list of 150 will have 
been completed. 



ANDREW JACKSON. 3I9 

"The council of the New York University selected an 
electorate of one hundred eminent citizens, each of whom 
was to vote for fifty candidates . Of the 100 judges, 97 
voted. The number of names that had been submitted as 
candidates by popular nomination was 252. No candidate 
receiving less than fifty-one votes could be accepted, and but 
twenty-nine received the required number. These were 
as follows: 

"George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Daniel Web- 
ster, Benjamin Franklin, Ulysses S. Grant, John Marshall, 
Thomas Jefferson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry W. 
Longfellow, Robert Fulton, Washington Irving, Jonathan 
Edwards, Samuel F. B. Morse, David G. Farragut, Henry 
Clay, Nathaniel Hawthorne, George Peabody, Robert E. 
Lee, Peter Cooper, Eli Whitney, John J. Audubon, Horace 
Mann, Henry Ward Beacher, James Kent, Joseph Story, 
John Adams, William E. Channing, Gilbert Stuart, and 
Asa Gray." 

This Hall of Fame was built by a donation of $100,000 
by an unknown person for great Americans. 

I have no purpose in putting into a book that may pos- 
sibly go down to future generations an act of one hundred 
eminent citizens — made an electorate body to select names 
— that cannot be described as less than an ignoble sectional 
prejudice, except to perpetuate a knowledge of the act. 
This ignoble omission has but one fitting prototype in Amer- 
ican history. When General Jackson drove the British 
army back to the sea and into their ships down at the mouth 
of the Mississippi River, and returned and came into the 
city that he had saved from a vandal army's victory over 
"booty and beauty," the Legislature in session passed a 
resolution thanking all commanding officers by name — 
except General Jackson. But for this the Legislature had 
a reason ; Jackson had found it necessary to put a squad of 
soldiers at the Capitol to keep that body from surrendering 
the city while he whipped the attacking army. 



320 1-1 PE- A^D TIMES OF 

This exhibition of prejudice against the South is an 
offense to pubhc decency, and unworthy any portion of the 
American people. 

At a time when a powerful invading army had humiliated 
the northern section of our common country as never 
before, and when threatened national dishonor was visible 
on every man's brow — and despair in every woman's face — 
the President driven into the country and the flag pulled 
down from the Capitol, this great soldier, great American, 
friend of the entire country, as if by a writ of restitution 
restored the President to his national home and put him in 
possession, and put the flag back on the Capitol, having sent 
the invading generals, Packenham and Gibbs, back in cofiins 
and General Keane back on crutches, with a fourth of the 
army of invasion dead. But the Hall of Fame for "Great 
Americans" is no place for Jackson. He was a South man. 



ANDREW JACKSON. 321 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

Jackson's patriotic address to the people of new 

orleans full of history the honor paid 

jackson by the people the speech of the rev. 

DUBOURG AND JACKSON's REPLY. 

IN closing up the record of General Jackson in the Indian 
and British wars of 1812, and before I take up his 
campaign against the Seminole Indians in 1818, and 
out of which came that battle of giants between Mr. Clay,- 
Mr. Webster, Mr. Calhoun, and a dozen other men of less 
note, but of great power, on one side, and the man of destiny 
on the other, I beg to show what a mighty man of valor can 
be, and is, when the rage of battle is over. 

After the British had been followed up and driven from 
the soil that Jackson said they should not sleep on, and into 
their ships, and before the army marched back to the city, 
the great soldier prepared an address to be read at the head 
of each command, which I here give in full : 

"Citizens and Fellow Soldiers: The enemy has retreated, 
and as your General has now leisure to proclaim to the 
world what he has noticed with admiration and pride, your 
undaunted courage, your patriotism and patience, under 
hardships and fatigues. Natives of different States, acting 
together for the first time in this camp, differing in habits 
and in language, instead of viewing in these circumstances 
the germ of distrust and division, you have made them the 
source of honorable emulation, and from the seeds of dis- 
cord itself have reaped the fruits of an honorable union. 
This day completes the fourth week since 1,500 of you 
attacked treble your number of men, who had boasted of 
their discipline and their services under a celebrated leader 
21 



322 LIPS' AND TIMES OF 

in a long and eventful war, attacked them in their camp the 
moment they had profaned the soil of freedom with their 
hostile tread, and inflicted a blow which was a prelude to 
the final result of their attempt to conquer or their poor 
contrivances to divide us. A few hours was sufficient to 
unite the gallant band, though at the moment they received 
the welcome order to march they were separated many 
leagues in different directions from the city. The gay 
rapidity of the march and the cheerful countenance of the 
officers and men would have induced the belief that some 
festive entertainment, not the strife of battle, was the scene 
to which they hastened with so much eagerness and hilarity. 
In the conflict that ensued the same spirit was supported, 
and my communications to the executive of the United 
States have testified the sense I entertained of the merits 
of the corps and officers that were engaged. Resting on 
the field of battle, they retired in perfect order on the next 
morning to these lines, destined to become the scene of 
future victories, which they were to share with the rest of 
you, my brave companions in arms. Scarcely were your 
lines a protection against musket shot when, on the 28th, a 
disposition was made to attack them with all the pomp and 
parade of military tactics, as improved by those veterans of 
the Spanish war. 

"Their batteries of heavy cannon kept up an incessant 
fire, their rockets illuminated the air, and under their cover 
two strong columns threatened our flanks. The foe inso- 
lently thought that this spectacle was too imposing to be 
resisted, and in the intoxication of his pride he already saw 
our lines abandoned without a contest. How were these 
menacing appearances met ? By shouts of defiance ; by a 
manly countenance not to be shaken by the roar of his 
cannon or by the glare of fireworks rockets ; by an artillery 
served with superior skill and with deadly effect. _ Never, 
my brave friends, can your General forget the testimonials 
of attachment to our glorious cause, of indignant hatred to 
our foe, of affectionate confidence in your chief, that 
resounded from every rank as he passed along your line. 
This animating scene dampened the courage of the enemy; 
he dropped his scaling ladders and fascines, and the threat- 
ened attack dwindled into a demonstration which served 



ANDREW JACKSON. 323 

only to show the emptiness of his parade, and to inspire you 
with a just confidence in yourselves. 

"The new year was ushered in with the most tremendous 
fire his whole artillery could produce; a few hours only, 
however, were necessary for the brave and skillful men who 
directed our own to dismount his cannon, destroy his bat- 
teries, and effectually silence his fire. Hitherto, my brave 
friends, in the contest on our lines, your courage had been 
passive only; you stood with calmness a fire that would 
have tried the firmness of a veteran, and you anticipated a 
nearer contest with an eagerness which was soon to be 
gratified. 

- "On the 8th of January the final effort was made. At 
the dawn of day the batteries opened and the columns 
advanced. Knowing that the volunteers from Tennessee 
and the militia from Kentucky were stationed on your left, 
it was there they directed their chief attack. 

"Reasoning always from false principles, they expected 
little opposition from men whose officers even were not in 
uniform, who were ignorant of the rules of dress, and who 
had never been caned into discipline. Fatal mistake ; a fire 
incessantly kept up, directed with a calmness and unerring 
aim, strewed the field with the bravest officers and men of 
the column which slowly advanced, according to the most 
approved rules of European tactics, and was cut down by 
the untutored courage of American militia. Unable to 
sustain this galling and unceasing fire, some hundreds near- 
est the entrenchment called for quarter, which was granted, 
the rest retreating, were rallied at some distance, but only 
to make them a surer mark for the grape and cannister shot 
of our artillery, which, without exaggeration, mowed down 
whole ranks at every discharge, and at length they precipi- 
tately retired from the field. 

"Our right had only a short contest to sustain with a few 
rash men, who fatally for themselves forced their entrance 
into the unfinished redoubt on the river. They were quickly 
dispossessed, and this glorious day terminated with the loss 
to the enemy of their commander-in-chief and one major 
general killed, another major general wounded, the most 
experienced and bravest of their officers and more than 
3,000 men killed, wounded, and missing, while our ranks, 



324 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

my friends, were thinned only by the loss of seven of our 
brave companions killed and six disabled by wounds — 
wonderful interposition of Heaven, unexampled event in 
the history of war. 

"Let us be grateful to the God of battles, who has directed 
the arrows of indignation against our invaders, while he 
covered with his protecting shield the brave defenders of 
their country. 

"After this unsuccessful and disastrous attempt, their 
spirits were broken, their force was destroyed, and their 
whole attention was employed in providing the means of 
escape. This they have effected, leaving their heavy artil- 
lery in our power, and many of their wounded to our clem- 
ency. The consequences of this short but decisive campaign 
are incalculably important. The pride of our arrogant 
enemy humbled, his forces broken, his leaders killed, his 
insolent hopes of our disunion frustrated, his expectation 
of rioting in our spoils and wasting our country changed 
into ignominious defeat, shameful flight and a reluctant 
acknowledgment of the humanity and kindness of those 
whom he had doomed to all the horrors and humiliation of 
a conquered State. 

"On the other side, unanimity established, disaffection 
crushed, confidence restored, your country saved from con- 
quest, your property from pillage, your wives and daughters 
from insult and violation, the Union preserved from dis- ' 
memberment, and perhaps a period put by this decisive 
stroke to a bloody and savage war. These, my brave 
friends, are the consequences of the efforts you have made, 
and the success with which they have been crowned by 
Heaven. 

"These important results have been effected by the united 
courage and perseverance of the army, but which the differ- 
ent corps, as well as the individuals that compose it, have 
vied with each other in their exertions to produce. The 
gratitude, the admiration of their country, offers a fairer 
reward than that which any praises of the General can 
bestow, and the best that of which they can never be 
deprived — the consciousness of having done their duty 
and of meriting the applause they will receive." 



ANDREW JACKSON. 325 

This address is a great state paper, deeply touching in the 
affectionate relation between the commander, whose brain 
planned, and the private soldier who obeyed his orders with 
a willing step that immortalized both. It is great in its 
patriotism, which is the highest estate that citizen life can 
reach. It is great in the wide reach and far-seeing effect 
of what the Commanding General and his private soldiers 
had done for their country and posterity, great in giving 
the credit to his soldiers. 

All in all, it was a day in our history that will quicken the 
pulse of patriots for ages. From a dread forecast that hung 
as a dark cloud of hopeless despair over every patriot home 
from the Eastern shore to the great waters on the West, the 
sun rose on a new day. From defeat there came victory. 
From a nation in a righteous war, with untrained soldiers, 
beaten down with veterans and superior numbers on every 
field, the enemy's greatest army was literally driven into the 
sea. In a single day the insulting press had been silenced, 
and the answer to the oft-repeated charge that we were a 
nation of braggarts to bring on a war, but cowards in the 
fight, given in such blunt language, that up to this time, 
no British quill-driver has repeated the slander. 

It is true the treaty of Ghent had been made, brought 
about by the victories in the Creek Nation at Mobile and at 
Pensacola, but in deep humiliation our commissioners had 
consented to a treaty without securing any concession on 
the main cause of the war, the right of search on the high 
seas, and the treaty was signed without it. But "Old 
Hickory" at New Orleans put it in the treaty in more endur- 
ing form than it could have been done by Clay, Adams, 
Bayard, Gallatm, and Russell at Ghent. Jackson put it in 
with blood letters, and after three generations have passed 
away, no British lord nor British sea captain nor British 
general in quest of somebody's country has ever whispered 
the right to search American ships on the high seas. 



326 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

Why the address to the army, which contains more 
American history than any paper of its length that was ever 
written, in my opinion, was not thought worthy a place in 
Parton's "Life of Jackson," I do not know. The refusal 
of Mr. Parton to publish this address in the voluminous 
book he wrote is like his refusal to publish the "Exposition," 
the only paper Jackson had asked to be put in his life when 
written, the highest possible negative evidence of unfairness. 

This address tells the whole story. It discloses the secret 
of a great victory by raw militia over a trained army of 
more than double their number, which so astounded army 
officers in all parts of the world that nothing but a thousand 
confessions by the officers of the vanquished army has 
verified the story told by the victors. 

Without General Jackson's concise statement in this 
address, of the way he cut this great army to pieces by piece- 
meal, demoralizing the entire British army and giving con- 
fidence to his own men, thus giving him the victory when 
the final issue came, the mystery of the victory would be a 
mystery still. 

The American people at the time I am writing, to say 
nothing of strangers, do not know how General Jackson 
won the victory of the 8th of January. Even reading 
people do not seem to understand that the shan't-sleep-on- 
our-soil night battle of the 23d of December, 18 14, giving 
the British the entree of war by Tennessee Indian fighters 
who used hatchets and butcher knives, was the unique, vic- 
torious opening of a fighting campaign that lasted every 
day and every night up to the 8th, and including a succes- 
sion of hand-to-hand triumphs that actually pounded into 
the heads of the British soldiers such a surprise that when 
the battle of the 8th came their generals, in a desperate 
effort to lead a demoralized army to the front, were all 
killed, and the soldiers were fleeing to their ships, confessing 
a defeat that they of all men knew most about. 



ANDREW JACKSON. 327 

The shan't-sleep-on-our-soil night battle of December 
23d, the battle of the 28th, and the battle of the ist of 
January, with the backwoodsmen of Tennessee every night 
out hunting roundsmen and pickets like they hunted coons 
— Jackson's unprecedented tenacious fighting, day and 
night, with part of his army, while with the balance he 
improvised a line of defense under the very nose of Pack- 
enham's great army — is what whipped the British before 
the final battle came. It is worthy of notice that this is now 
conceded by British authorities. 

The facts in this address solve the mystery; besides, it 
contains more patriotic fervor and a higher system of tactics 
in war, a brotherhood between the General and his soldiers, 
than had been found in the orders of any general in any 
time — the pronouncement of a system that carried an 
army through a campaign which had no parallel in the 
drudgery of service, the obedience of orders, and the 
triumphs of victory, with but one deserter in the entire 
campaign. 

Eaton's "Life of Jackson" gives the following account 
of Jackson's triumphant march back into the city, after he 
had driven the enemy to their ships : 

"On the 20th, General Jackson, with his remaining 
forces, commenced his march back to New Orleans. The 
general glow excited at beholding his entrance into the city 
at the head of his victorious army was manifested by all 
those feelings which patriotism and sympathy inspire. The 
windows and streets were crowded to view the man who, 
by his vigilance, decision, and energy, had saved the country 
from the fate to which it had been exposed. It was a scene 
well calculated to excite the tenderest emotions. But a 
few weeks since, and every bosom throbbed for its safety. 
Fathers, sons, and husbands, urged by the necessity of the 
times, were toiling in defense of their wives and children. 
A ferocious soldiery, numerous and skilled in the art of 
war, to whom every indulgence had been promised, were 



328 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

Straining every exertion to effect their object. Every 
cannon that echoed from the Hne was perhaps the signal of 
their approach and the commencement of indescribable 
horrors. 

"But those feelings had subsided; the painful scenes, 
which had lasted so long, were gone. The tender female, 
relieved from the anguish of danger and suspense, no longer 
trembled for her safety and her honor; a new order of 
things had arisen; joy sparkled in every countenance, while 
scarcely a widow or orphan was seen to cloud the general 
transport. The Commanding General, under whose ban- 
ners everything had been achieved, deliberate, cool, and 
sparing of the lives of the brave defenders of their country, 
had dispelled the storm which had so long threatened to 
involve the ruin of thousands, and was now returning safe 
and unhurt, with those who had with him maintained the 
contest. His approach was hailed with acclamations; it 
was not the kind of applause which, resulting from fear, is 
sometimes extended by the subject to some conqueror or 
tyrant returning in triumph, but that which was extended 
by citizens to a citizen, springing from affection, and 
founded in the honest sincerity of the heart. All greeted 
his return and hailed him as their deliverer. 

"But amidst the expressions of thanks and honors and 
congratulations heaped upon him, he was not unmindful 
that to an energy above his own and to a wisdom which 
controls the destiny of nations he was indebted for the 
glorious triumph of his arms. Relieved from the arduous 
duties of the field, his first concern was to draw the minds 
of all in thankfulness and adoration to that sovereign 
mercy, without whose aid and inspiring counsel vain are 
all earthly efforts. The 23d having been appointed a day 
of prayer and thanksgiving for the happy deliverance 
effected by our arms, he repaired to the Cathedral. The 
church and altar were splendidly adorned, and more than 
could obtain admission had crowded to witness the cere- 
mony. A grateful recollection of his exertions to save the 
country was cherished by all ; nor did the solemnity of the 
occasion, even here, restrain a manifestation of their regard 
or induce them to withhold the honor so nobly earned. 
Children, robed in white and representing the different 



ANDREW JACKSON. 329 

States, were employed in strewing the way with flowers, 
and as he passed sang the beautiful ode, 'Hail to the Chief.' " 

It is pleasing to dwell on cheerful, happy, joyous New 
Orleans, when this great delivery came, and with the great- 
est pleasure I give here an entire chapter from "Jackson's 
Memoirs," by Mr. Waldo, a Massachusetts man, who wrote 
a little book three years after the battles of New Orleans. 
At the same time I make my grateful acknowledgments for 
this valuable little book, in which the early life and military 
career of General Jackson are so justly given. This book 
is out of print, and after most diligent search I have only 
been able to find one copy. Here is the extended extract: 

"The attention of the reader is now to be called from 
scenes of carnage, wounds, death, defeat and victory, to 
one, the most deeply interesting that can possibly be pre- 
sented to view of men. He is to be suddenly transported 
from those appalling scenes which, if tears are permitted to 
soil the purity of heaven, must make the angels weep, to one 
which must make them rejoice. 

"General Jackson, his gallant officers and his troops, al- 
though loaded with earthly honors and greeted with the 
acclamations of a grateful and protected people, did not 
omit to render that homage which is due to that Almighty 
Being who 'reigns in the armies of heaven above, as well as 
in the earth beneath.' A day of thanksgiving and solemn 
praise was appointed by the General. It was upon the 23d 
of January. The solemn rites were performed in the Cathe- 
dral in New Orleans. To behold a war-worn veteran like 
General Jackson, surrounded by his war-worn officers and 
troops, prostrated upon the altar of adoration and offering 
to the God of battles that glory which the world had 
bestowed upon them, must have moved the heart of apathy 
itself. It is totally impossible for one who was not a wit- 
ness of the scene to have a conception of its solemn gran- 
deur. The solemn peals of the organ, in unison with vocal 
praises, sent up to heaven the grateful acknowledgments of 
a preserved people. 



330 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

" 'Grim visag'd war had smooth'd its wrinkled front,' 
tears of exquisite joy rolled down the cheeks of soldiers and 
citizens, and the hearts of all were swollen with gratitude to 
the King of kings and Lord of lords. The Republic was 
safe; a vaunting foe was overthrown, and although the 
memories of the few who had fallen in the sanguinary- 
field *in sad remembrance rose,' it was a subject of inex- 
pressible consolation that almost all the soldiers who had 
formed the impregnable rampart upon the plains of the 
Mississippi were now assempled in the city which owed its 
preservation to their valor and to the blessing of heaven. 

"Upon this occasion the Rev. Dr. Dubourg, the minister 
apostolic of the Diocese of Louisiana, delivered to the 
General an address replete with the pious effusions of the 
Christian and the elegancies of the scholar. Although it 
haj; long been before the public, I cannot omit to enrich this 
volume by inserting a part of it, together with the impress- 
ive answer of General Jackson. While they will be read 
with rapture by the Christian, they cannot fail to excite the 
admiration of the patriot. 

"The venerable minister of the gospel thus addressed the 
hero of New Orleans, and the gallant officers and soldiers 
who had followed him to victory, and now joined him in 
adoration: 'General, while the State of Louisiana, in the 
joyful transports of her gratitude, hails you as her deliverer 
and the asserter of her menaced liberties; while grateful 
America, so lately wrapped up in anxious suspense on the 
fate of this important city, is re-echoing from shore to 
shore your splendid achievements, and preparing to inscribe 
your name on her immortal rolls, among those of her 
Washingtons; while history, poetry, and the monumental 
arts will vie in consigning to the admiration of the latest 
posterity a triumph perhaps unparalleled in their records; 
while thus raised by universal acclamation to the very pin- 
nacle of fame, how easy it had been for you. General, to 
forget the Prime Mover of your wonderful successes, and 
to assume to yourself a praise which must essentially return 
to that excellent source whence every merit is derived. 
But, better acquainted with the nature of true glory, and 
justly placing the summit of your ambition, in approving 
yourself the worthy instrument of heaven's merciful 



ANDREW JACKSON. 331 

designs, the first impulse of your religious heart was to 
acknowledge the interposition of Providence, your first 
step a solemn display of your humble sense of his favors. 
Still agitated at the remembrance of those dreadful agon- 
ies from which we have been so miraculously rescued, it is 
our pride to acknowledge that the Almighty has truly had 
the principal hand in our deliverance, and to follow you, 
General, in attributing to his infinite goodness, the homage 
of our unfeigned gratitude. Let the infatuated votary of 
a blind chance deride our credulous simplicity ; let the cold- 
hearted atheist look for the explanation of important events 
to the mere concatenation of human causes ; to us the whole 
universe is loud in proclaiming a Supreme Ruler who, as 
he holds the hearts of men in his hand, holds also the thread 
of all contingent occurrences. 

" To him, therefore, our most fervent thanks are due for 
our late unexpected rescue. It is Him we intend to praise, 
when considering you. General, as the man of his right 
hand, whom he has taken pains to fit out for the important 
cornmission of our defense. We extol that fecundity of 
genius by which, under the most discouraging distress, you 
created unforeseen resources; raised, as it were, from the 
ground hosts of intrepid warriors, and provided every vul- 
nerable point with ample means of defense. To Him we 
trace that instinctive superiority of your mind, which at 
once rallied around you universal confidence; impressed 
one irresistible movement to all the jarring elements of 
which this political machine is composed; aroused their 
slumbering spirits, and diffused through every rank the 
noble ardor which glowed in your bosom. To Him, in 
fine, we address our acknowledgments for that consum- 
mate prudence which defeated all the combinations of a 
sagacious enemy, entangled him in the very snares which 
he had spread for us, and succeeded in effecting his utter 
destruction without exposing the lives of our citizens. 
Immortal thanks be to His Supreme Majesty for sending 
us such an instrument of his bountiful designs. A gift of 
that value is the best token of the continuance of his pro- 
tection, the most solid encouragement to sue for new favors. 
The first, which it emboldens us humbly to supplicate, as 
nearest our throbbing hearts, is that you may long enjoy 



332 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

the honor of your grateful country ; of which you will per- 
mit us to present you a pledge, in this wreath of laurel, the 
prize of victory, the symbol of immortality. The next is 
a speedy and honorable termination of the bloody contest 
in which we are engaged. No one has so efficaciously 
labored as you, General, for the acceleration of that blissful 
period; may we soon reap that sweetest fruit of your 
splendid and uninterrupted victories.' " 

The General thus replied to this solemn and impressive 
address. His allusion to the "cypress leaf," a symbol of 
grief and woe, is inimitably fine. Cypress groves were 
constantly in view of the rival armies during their sanguin- 
ary conflicts, and they will hereafter remind Englishmen 
of the carnage committed amongst his infatuated country- 
men invading our soil by the gallant armies of the Republic 
in defending it : 

"Reverend Sir: I receive with gratitude and pleasure 
the symbol crown which piety has prepared. I receive it 
in the name of the brave men who so effectually seconded 
my exertions; they well deserve the laurels which their 
country will bestow. 

"For myself to have been instrumental in the deliverance 
of such a country is the greatest blessing that heaven could 1 1 
confer. That it has been effected with so little loss ; that so 
few tears should cloud the smiles of our triumph, and not a 
cypress leaf be interwoven in the wreath which you present, 
is a source of the most exquisite pleasure. I thank you, 
reverend sir, most sincerely for the prayers which you offer 
up for my happiness. May those your patriotism dictates 
■- for our beloved country be first heard ; and may mine, for 
your individual prosperity, as well as that of the congrega- 
tion committed to your care, be favorably received; the 
prosperity, wealth and happiness of this city will then be 
commensurate with the courage and other qualities of its 
inhabitants." 



ANDREW JACKSON. 333 

Here is a man whose burning patriotism and heroic 
courage prompted the dismissal of surgeons when bloody 
wounds had scarcely been staunched, and took command 
of an army that came at his own bidding and destroyed the 
British ally, the great Creek nation, in five pitched battles ; 
then turned on another ally in disguise, a Spanish province, 
making it sue for peace — all his own work; then when his 
Government in its dreadful extremity could not spare him 
even a pretext for an army ; who himself raised an army of 
volunteers and gained a victory over one of the best armies 
England ever sent to the field ; saved a great American city 
from spoilation, with all that comes to helpless women 
when in the hands of civilized men with the habits of bar- 
barians ; and at the same time saved the whole nation from 
humiliation, which it had almost reached through defeat. 

Suppose, under some strange, uncovered, lurking spirit 
of unfriendliness the Government, whose honor this one 
man saved, has for eighty-five years been persistently 
unmindful of the obligation due his name, what is Tennes- 
see going to do ? 

Will not Tennessee proudly build, at some day, a monu- 
ment to this great hero and the brave Tennessean who 
saved a nation's honor and made the very name of Ten- 
nessee chivalric? 



334 J-IPE, AND TIMES OF 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

AT ONE o'clock JACKSON SAID, '^RISE ; THE ENEMY WILL 

BE ON US ; I MUST GO AND SEE COFFEE" CARROLL WAS 

GIVEN THE CENTER ; THE ASSAULT WAS THEN MADE 

PACKENHAM WAS KILLED ; GIBBS TOOK HIS PLACE ; HE 
WAS killed; LAMBERT TOOK GIBBS' PLACE AND WAS 

SHOT FROM HIS HORSE THE ACCOUNTS GIVEN BY THE 

BRITISH OFFICERS THE ATTACK ON CARROLL's LINES 

MUCH LIKE napoleon's ATTACK ON WELLINGTON'S 
RIGHT WING. 

JACKSON looked at his watch. It was past one. 
"Gentlemen," said he to his dozing aides, "we have 
slept enough. Rise. The enemy will be upon us in 
a few minutes. I must go and see Coffee." 

This is not the introduction to a story of fiction. It is 
exactly what was said by the hero of "Jackson Day," when 
he awoke out of a short nap at one o'clock on the morning 
of the 8th. It was not information brought by an express 
from General Morgan that the fight was on; the express 
was a request for more troops on the right, the west bank 
of the river. On the evening of the 7th, running up to a 
late hour in the night, Jackson's vigilance in the use of 
scouting and reconnoitering parties had put him in full 
possession of the enemy's movements for the coming day. 
With him "the hour has come." All had been done that 
could be, and he was so constituted that when duty was 
performed, courage and confidence, trusting in Providence, 
made him serene, no matter what was threatened. 

Long before day his army was in line of battle, every 
command falling in its place with a regularity that would 
have marked the movements of trained soldiers. That 



ANDREW JACKSON. 335 

each command knew its place is attested by an accident 
which occurred after the battle, the hapless fate of a deser- 
ter from Jackson's army. On the evening before the battle 
a deserter went over to the enemy and become the confi- 
dant of the officers in command as to Jackson's line of 
battle. Information as to the weak place in the line was 
greatly desired, for it was the concensus of opinion with 
the commanding officers that with Jackson's line once 
broken the victory was won. 

The deserter gave the information that Jackson was 
massing his troops on the wings, believing the attempt 
would be a flank movement ; and to prove this, he said, the 
center was to be defended by some poorly armed, raw 
militia, with ragged clothes, and wearing coon and fox-skin 
caps. 

When the battle commenced Jackson, sure enough, had 
Carroll's coon and fox hunters wearing the sign of the 
backwoods on their heads, with Adair's ragged Kentuck- 
ians, scarcely armed at all, for a support. So General 
Packenham, whether because of this information or not, 
concentrated his best troops on the center, confident of 
breaking the line. After the battle was over the British 
took up this deserter and hung him as a spy, for being sent 
by General Jackson to mislead them into a trap which the 
General had set for them. 

All the accounts of the attack from British sources, show 
that while Jackson's army came to its work at the opening 
of the battle in perfect order, the British army came in great 
confusion, and there are facts indicating what I have so 
often said in these chapters — that by the battles of the 23d 
and 28th of December and the ist of January, and includ- 
ing Jackson's mode of harrassing the enemy at night, he 
had the enemy whipped before he fought the final battle. 
To illustrate. Colonel Mullins, in command of the Forty- 
fourth Regiment, after orders had been given and his posi- 



336 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

tion taken, said : "My regiment has been ordered to execu- 
tion; their dead bodies are to be used as a bridge for the 
rest of the army to march over." This officer after the war 
was cashiered, and on his trial the facts came out. It was 
his regiment that was ordered to carry to the front the 
fascines and ladders for crossing the ditch and scaling Jack- 
son's mud bank, as the British officers called it when pre- 
paring for the attack. His failure to bring them up was 
one of the grounds of his arrest. 

But Colonel Dale, colonel of the Forty-Third — the pray- 
ing Highlanders, the most distinguished of all the regi- 
ments in the army for fighting — on moving his regiment 
into position, and when asked by the physician of his regi- 
ment, "What do you think of it?" made no reply in words, 
but giving the doctor his watch and letter said : "Give these 
to my wife; I shall die at the head of my regiment." 

Captain Cook, of the British army, who had been thrown 
out, but was getting into position just before, says, in refer- 
ence to the opening scene of the battle : 

"The mist was slowly clearing off and objects could only 
be discerned at 200 or 300 yards distant, as the morning 
was rather hazy. We had only quitted the battery ten 
minutes when a congreve rocket was thrown up, but 
whether from the enemy or not we could not tell ; for some 
seconds it whizzed backwards and forwards in such a zig- 
zag way that we all looked up to see whether it was coming 
down upon our heads. The troops simultaneously halted, 
but all smiled at some sailors dragging a two-wheeled car 
a hundred yards to our left, which had brought up ammu- 
nition to the battery, who, by common consent, as it were, 
let go the shaft, and let go the instant the rocket was let off. 
(This rocket, although we did not know it, proved to be the 
signal to begin the attack.) All eyes were cast upward, 
like those of so many philosophers, to descry, if possible, 
what would be the upshot of this noisy harbinger breaking 
in upon the silence that reigned around. During all my 
military service I never remember a body of troops thrown 



ANDREW JACKSON. 337 

at once into such a strange configuration, having formed 
themselves into a circle and halted, both officers and men, 
without any previous word of command, each man looking 
earnestly as if by the instinct of his own imagination, to see 
in what particualr quarter the anticipated firing would 
begin." 

And here is what Captain Cook said, in his own words, 
about what was taking place in less than thirty minutes 
after the battle was commenced : 

"The echo from the cannonade and musketry was so tre- 
mendous in the forests that the vibration seemed as if the 
earth were cracking and tumbling to pieces, or as if the 
heavens were rent asunder by the most terrific peals of thun- 
der that ever rumbled; it was the most awful and grandest 
mixture of sounds to be conceived; the woods seemed to 
crack to an interminable distance; each cannon report was 
answered one hundred fold, and produced an intermingled 
roar surpassing strange. And this phenomenon can neither 
be fancied nor described, save by those who can bear evi- 
dence of the fact. The flashes of fire looked as if coming 
out of the bowels of the earth, so little above its surface 
were the batteries of the Americans. We had run the 
gauntlet from the left to the center, in front of the Ameri- 
can lines, under a cross-fire, in hopes of joining in the 
assault, and had a fine view of the sparkling musketry and 
the liquid flashes from the cannon. And, melancholy to 
relate, all at once many soldiers were met, wildly rushing 
out of the dense clouds of smoke, lighted up by a sparkling 
sheet of fire which hovered over the ensanguined field. 
Regiments were shattered, broken and dispersed; all order 
was at an end. And the dismal spectacle was seen of the 
dark shadows of men, like skirmishers, breaking out of the 
clouds of smoke which slowly and majestically rolled along 
the even surface of the field. And so astonished was I at 
such a panic that I said to a retiring soldier, 'Have we or 
the Americans attacked?' for I had never seen troops in 
such a hurry without being followed. *No,' replied the 
man, with the countenance of despair and out of breath, as 

22 



338 1-iPE A^D TIMES OF 

he ran along, 'we attacked, sir.' Still the reverberation 
was so intense towards the great wood that any one would 
have thought the great fighting was going on there instead 
of immediately in front. 

"Lieut. Duncan Campbell, of our regiment, was seen to 
our left, running about in circles, first staggering one way, 
then another, and at length fell on the sod, helpless upon 
his face, and in this state several times recovered his legs 
and again tumbled, and when picked up was found to be 
blind from the effects of a grape shot that had torn open 
his forehead, giving him a slight wound in the leg, and had 
also ripped the scabbard from his side and knocked the cap 
from his head. While being borne insensible to the rear, 
he still clenched the hilt of his sword with a convulsive 
grasp, the blade thereof being broken off close at the hilt 
with grape shot, and in a state of delirium and suffering he 
lived for a few days. 

"The first officer we met was Lieutenant Colonel Stovin, 
of the staff, who was unhorsed, without his pack, and bleed- 
ing down the left side of his face. He at first thought that 
the 200 men were the whole regiment, and he said : Torty- 
Third, for God's sake, save the day!' Lieutenant Colonel 
Smith, of the rifles, and one of the Packenham staff, then 
rode up at full gallop from the right (he had a few months 
before brought to England the dispatches of the capture of 
Washington) and said to me, 'Did you ever see such a 
scene? There is nothing left but the Seventh and Forty- 
Third. Just draw up here for a few minutes and show 
front that the repulsed troops may reform.' For the 
chances were now, as the greater portion of the actually 
attacking corps were stricken down and the remainder dis- 
persed, that the Americans would become the assailants. 
The ill-fated rocket was discharged before the British 
troops moved on. The consequence was that every Ameri- 
can was warned by such a silly signal, to be laid on the 
parapets, ready to be discharged to the fullest effect. 

"The misty field of battle was now inundated, and 
wounded officers and soldiers were going to the rear from 
the right, left and center; in fact, little more than 1,000 sol- 
diers were left unscathed out of the 3,000 that attacked the 
American lines (meaning the center), and they fell like the 



ANDREW JACKSON. 339 

very blade of grass beneath the sides of the mower. Pack- 
enham was killed, Gibbs was mortally wounded and his 
brigade dispersed like the dust before the whirlwind, and 
Keane was wounded. The command of his Majesty's 
forces at this critical juncture now fell to Major General 
Lambert, the only general left, and who was in reserve with 
his fine brigade." 

And here is what Captain Hill says of the first repulse by 
Carroll's troops, and which is put at twenty-five minutes 
after the attack was made: 

"Hastily galloping to the scene of confusion, we found 
the men falling back in great numbers. Every possible 
means was used to rally them. A majority of those retreat- 
ing were wounded, and all complained that not a fascine or 
ladder had been brought to the front to enable them to cross 
the ditch. 

"Just at this time General Packenham rode up from his 
post in the rear and strove to restore them to order, and 
said, 'For shame; recollect you are British soldiers.' " 

The "Life of Jackson," written by Eaton and Reid, the 
latter of whom was Jackson's aide and with him in the bat- 
tle, gives this account of the attack on Carroll's line : 

"The British batteries, which had been demolished on the 
1st of the month, had been re-established on the preceding 
night, and heavy pieces of cannon mounted to aid in their 
intended operations. These now opened and showers of 
bombs and balls were poured upon our line, while the air 
was lighted with their congreve rockets. The two divis- 
ions, commanded by Sir Edward Packenham in person and 
supported by Generals Keane and Gibbs, pressed forward, 
the right against the center of General Carroll's command, 
the left against our redoubt on the levee. A thick fog, that 
obscured the morning, enabled them to approach within a 
short distance of our entrenchment before they were dis- 
covered. They were now perceived advancing with firm, 



340 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

quick, and steady pace, in column, with the front of sixty 
or seventy deep. Our troops, who had for some time been 
in readiness and waiting their appearance, gave three cheers, 
and instantly the whole line was lighted with the blaze of 
their fire. A burst of artillery and small arms, pouring 
with destructive aim upon them, mowed down their front 
and arrested their advance. In our musketry there was not 
a moment's intermission. As one party discharged their 
pieces, another succeeded, alternately loading and appear- 
ing; no pause could be perceived — it was one continued 
volley. The columns already perceived their dangerous 
and exposed situation. Battery No. 7, on the left, was ably 
served by Lieutenant Spotts, and galled them with an inces- 
sant and destructive fire. Batteries Nos. 6 and 8 were no 
less actively employed, and no less successful in felling 
them to the ground. Notwithstanding the severity of our 
fire, which few troops for a moment could have withstood, 
some of these brave men pressed on and succeeded in gain- 
ing the ditch in front of our works, where they remained 
during the action, and were afterwards made prisoners. 
The horror before them was too great to be withstood, and 
already were the British troops seen wavering in their deter- 
mination and receding from the conflict. 

"At this moment Sir Edward Packenham, hastening to 
the front, endeavored to encourage and inspire them with 
renewed zeal. His example was of short continuance; he 
soon fell mortally wounded, in the arms of his aide-de- 
camp, not far from our line. General Gibbs and General 
Keane also fell, and were borne from the field dangerously 
wounded. At this moment General Lambert, who was 
advancing at a small distance in the rear with the reserve, 
met the columns precipitately retreating and in great con- 
fusion. His efforts to stop them were unavailing — they 
continued retreating until they reached the ditch, at the 
distance of 400 yards, where, a momentary safety being 
,found, they were rallied and halted. 

"The field before them, over which they had advanced, 
was strewn with the dead and dying. Danger hovered still 
around; yet, urged and encouraged by their officers, who 
feared their own disgrace involved in the failure, they again 
moved to the charge. They were already near enough to 



ANDREW JACKSON. 34I 

deploy, and were endeavoring to do so, but the same con- 
stant and unremitted resistance that had caused their first 
retreat continued yet unabated. Our batteries had never 
ceased their fire. Their constant discharges of grape and 
canister and the fatal aim of our musketry mowed down the 
front of the columns as fast as they could be formed. 

"Satisfied nothing could be done, and that certain 
destruction awaited still further attempts, they forsook the 
contest and the field in disorder, leaving it almost entirely 
covered with the dead and the wounded. It was in vain 
their officers endeavored to animate them to further resist- 
ance and equally vain to attempt coercion. 

"The panic produced from the dreadful repulse they 
had experienced ; the plain, on which they had acted, being 
covered with innumerable bodies of their countrymen; 
while, with their most zealous exertions, they had been 
unable to obtain the slightest advantage, were circumstan- 
ces well calculated to make even the most submissive 
soldier to oppose the authority that would have controlled 
mm. 

The British officers who witnessed the battle and have 
written about it — men like Cook, Hill, and the "Subaltern" 
—have given substantially the same account of it that Reid 
and the author of "Jackson and New Orleans," who saw 
it, have; and taking all that is said, it was a battle lasting 
from the 23d of December, 1814, to the 8th of January, 
181 5, and instead of one never-to-be-forgotten day, it was 
a continuous battle lasting over that period, including both 
the 23d and 8th, making fifteen days and every night. 

Jackson said at two o'clock on the evening of the 23d, 
when the young Creole brought him the news that the 
British had landed at the head of Lake Borgne: "They 
shan't sleep on our soil; we will fight them tonight." 
Immortal words! 

And, according to the "Subaltern," they never had one 
night's sleep until they got back to their ships. Jackson 
organized night bands, made up of tried men; had them, 



342 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

in the dead of night, stealthily approach each other from 
different parts of his army, sometimes with only rifles, but 
sometimes with a cannon, and then organize, kill or run in 
their pickets, then shoot into the camp, arousing the whole 
army, with no more sleep for the night, and this was so 
varied as to keep the British army in a state of consternation 
during the entire fifteen days. 

In some respects the series of attacks on Jackson's lines 
resemble the series of assaults made by Napoleon on Wel- 
lington's right wing, or solid square, at the battle of Wat- 
erloo, the difference being that, while Napoleon was trying 
to break the line, a solid square on the right, knowing that 
unless the line could be broken the day was lost, just as 
Packenham was trying to break the Jackson line, believing 
that to break the line was to win the battle. The difference 
is that Napoleon's assault was made and repeated through 
one entire day only, while Packenham' s assaults on Jack- 
son's line lasted fifteen days. Instead of the American 
people having one grand holiday in honor of Jackson's vic- 
tory on the 8th, they should have a sort of Lent, running 
over the fifteen days, in memory of the men that for these 
days willingly offered their lives for their country, and 
made the welkin ring with three cheers from one end of the 
line to the other when old England's army came in sight at 
the final struggle. There should be fifteen days of thank- 
fulness to Almighty God for his providence in delivering 
us from the humiliation of defeat and subjugation by a 
nation that long since decided that the rights of all people 
can, so far as it is concerned, only be determined by the 
size and number of its guns. 

But to the battle. It's a short story. General Gibbs' 
division of 3,000 men was sent to the extreme right (Jack- 
son's left), evidently to do what Jackson anticipated when 
he put Coffee with his Tennessee troops in the swamps to 
prevent the flank movement; but, for some reason, prob- 



ANDREW JACKSON. 343 

ably finding that the fortifications had been extended into 
the swamp, or perhaps under orders to unite all forces to 
break the center, General Gibbs was soon in person at the 
center, as if, for the moment, all thought of everything was 
abandoned except to break through at the point believed to 
be the weakest. General Packenham himself was in com- 
mand. As the fog cleared away, it being now good day- 
light, when the front of the column, sixty to seventy men 
deep, could be seen, only a few hundred yards away. Car- 
roll's men gave three cheers, and the half-clad and poorly- 
armed Kentuckians' Carroll's support in the rear, gave three 
cheers, but not a gun was fired. Carroll, like Jackson, 
was always with his troops in a critical moment. Carroll 
had given strict orders. The soldiers, the men wearing 
home-made clothes and caps made of coon skins, kept one 
eye on the advancing enemy and one on Carroll — men and 
guns ready, and as cool as if at a deer stand as the antler 
bounds in sight, unconscious of his fate. 

When the time came Carroll gave the command. It rang 
down the line. The command was, "Fire!" 

One who witnessed it described the scene, and here is 
what he says : 

"At first, with a certain deliberation; afterwards in hot- 
test haste; always with deadly effect, the riflemen plied 
their terrible weapons. The summit of the embankment 
was a line of spurting fire, except where the great guns 
showed their liquid, belching flash. The noise was peculiar 
and altogether indescribable — a rolling, bursting, echoing 
noise, never to be forgotten by a man who heard it. Along 
the whole line it blazed and rolled, the British batteries 
showering rockets over the scene, Patterson's batteries on 
the other side of the river joining in the hellish concert. 
Ask on one to describe it. Our words were mostly made 
before such a scene had become possible." 



344 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

There was confusion before the assault was made, 
described by the British officers who wrote it up, on account 
of Colonel Mullins, the Forty-fourth Regiment, with the 
ladders and fascines, not coming up, until General Gibbs, 
who had taken command and was now at the heads of the 
columns, shouted, "Here comes the Forty-fourth;" adding, 
in an undertone, as was shown on the trial of Mullins, "If 
I live till tomorrow I will hang Mullins on the highest tree 
in the cypress swamp." 

Under the terrible fire from Carroll's riflemen and the 
heavy guns that had been well placed along the line, this 
column, bravely led by Gibbs, steadily moved forward. 
Along both lines of opposing armies it was one continued 
roar, that fairly shook the earth. The British officers, as 
well as all their writers, had confidently believed that by 
such an assault by regulars Jackson's raw militia would 
give way and the victory would be won, and it is but fair to 
say that any European general would have come to the 
same conclusion. 

But the slaughter of this advancing column by raw 
militia is one of the wonders of war's record. It was the 
spirit of Jackson, the man who had never known fear ; who 
was as cool as when Dickerson shot him through the body 
as he was when he said, "They shan't sleep on our soil ; we 
will fight them tonight." He had a power over men that 
will never be known until the mystery of mind over mind 
will be more fully revealed. He made all men chivalrous ; 
his presence was omnipresence. His presence infused his 
spirit in the army and all who came in reach of it. There 
was a power beyond magnetism. It was a divinity that the 
great God had imparted to him as a commander of men, 
that may be unfolded in the future, in the advancing science 
of psychology, or in the opening vision of the hereafter. 

When he said to the brave commander at Fort Bowyer 
and his men, "At any sacrifice the British ships must be kept 



ANDREW JACKSON. 345 

out of the Bay," the men came together and entered into a 
solemn pledge, one with the other, that when the fort was 
shot away their bodies should be there, dead or alive; and 
after it was all over and Jackson came to the fort, the 
answer was, like the God-protected prisoners in jail, "We 
are still here" — part dead, part alive, but they were all 
there. 

And when he put Captain Overton in command at Fort 
Phillips and told him not to surrender, the Captain took the 
flag and nailed it so high that it could not be pulled down, 
which meant no surrender, and when the struggle ended 
the flag was still nailed up and not a gunboat had passed 
up the Mississippi. 

And when he said to Coffee and Carroll, "Go back to 
Tennessee and raise me an army for New Orleans," they 
went. Jackson's name was enough; the army came. 

And when he said to the women and children of New 
Orleans, "These invaders shall never enter your city; if 
they do, it will be over the dead bodies of me and all my 
soldiers," it was accepted as the solemn pledge of every 
man in the army. 

The part of the line attacked, Carroll's command, had 
been thoroughly drilled. They were not shooting at the 
British as an army ; they were shooting under orders — each 
at the man that seemed to be in front. So dreadful was 
the slaughter with the advancing column that the author 
of "Jackson and New Orleans" says one could walk a quar- 
ter of a mile on dead bodies when the retreat commenced. 
Just twenty-five minutes after the first gun General Pack- 
enham rode to the front to rally the men. His horse was 
shot and his arm shattered. Mounting another horse, he 
was riddled, and died in a few minutes under a tree that is 
still standing. Major General Gibbs took his place and 
rode to the front. He was instantlv shot from his horse 
and died. The remaining Major General, Keane, took 



346 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

command, and he was shot off his horse, was taken to the 
rear terribly wounded, but recovered. Then General Lam- 
bert, who had but recently reached the army, came with the 
reserve, with his 1,700 men who had been held for an emer- 
gency. This fine command moved up with steady step, in 
front of which was the old guard, 1,000 men, making 2,700. 
The old guard was the praying Highlanders, led by the gal- 
lant Col. D. Dale. This regiment, which had followed 
Wellington in Spain and across the Pyrennes and fought in 
many battles, for some reason halted as they approached 
Carroll's line. Their brave colonel was killed, as he said 
he would be, at the head of the command, and with him 
544 of his command were left on the field dead or wounded. 
Like all the other commands that had faced Carroll's Ten- 
nesseans, the remnant of the praying Highlanders, with 
Lambert's reserve, was soon in full retreat. 

On the 9th, the day after the battle, Jackson reported to 
the Secretary of War that the enemy had left 1,500 dead 
and wounded on the field; but on the loth he made a second 
report that, on getting fuller reports, he found the dead 
and wounded amounted to 2,600. 

(The story of this battle is only half told. It will be 
concluded in the next chapter.) 



ANDREW JACKSON. 347 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 



DRIVING THE BRITISH ARMY TO THEIR SHIPS JACKSON 

RETURNED JACKSON's REWARD FOR HAVING THE 

LEGISLATURE GUARDED GENERAL COFFEE REPLIES TO 

A RESOLUTION HONORING HIM AND OTHER OFFICERS 

MAJOR OVERTON IN DEFENDING FORT PHILLIPS THE 

ENFORCEMENT OF MARTIAL LAW NEWSPAPER ATTACK 

BY LOUILLIER HIS ARREST THE ARREST OF JUDGE 

HALL. 



A 



FTER driving the British back to the sea, they hav- 
ing escaped by crowding into their ships, they 
remained, seemingly undecided as to what was to 
be done, while Jackson returned in triumph, as shown in 
the last preceding chapter. What makes Jackson's life a 
romance beyond that of the life of any other one of the 
world's great generals, as it is believed it is, is its conflicts 
without a break in its triumphs. From infancy to the 
grave, his life was a struggle. Disease and personal injur- 
ies ceased only when the grave opened. 

That General Jackson was combative in a sense must be 
conceded ; that he maintained the right as he saw it, in both 
public and private life, fearless of consequences in a degree 
that scarcely has an equal, will be conceded by all who read 
his character. His devotion to principle, standing by the 
right, coupled with a love of country and regard for his 
personal honor, at any cost, mark him as among the high- 
est, if not the highest, type as a citizen among our public 
men. 

It can be said of Andrew Jackson, and will not be denied 
by any close student of his career, that when his country or 
his personal honor was involved, his life did not weigh a 



348 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

feather in shaping his course. This made enemies, and 
gave him the reputation of being combative. Whoever 
hews to the Hne, whoever stands for the right in public and 
private life, may have his friends, but will certainly have 
his enemies. As a soldier, his conflicts with the Govern- 
ment he was serving would signalize his disobedience and 
consign him to disgrace, were it not that all his conflicts 
were in matters vital to the government, and in which he 
risked all, sometimes his life, in the right and final success 
of his disobedience, and in every instance was successful — 
so successful that an act of disobedience came finally to 
make a prima facie case of right which stood until investi- 
gation proved the mistake. 

In the fearless discharge of duty, which marked every 
day and every deed of this great hero's life, and in the con- 
flicts which this heroism brought, nothing is more striking 
than what came into his life at the time of his triumphant 
entrance into the city that he had saved from the spoliation, 
rapine, revenge and lust which had marked the entrance 
into the cities of Spain, as well as the entrance into the 
cities of the Northern States, by the very men that com- 
posed the army of General Packenham. 

Incensed as was the Legislature of Louisiana at the 
declaration of martial law, and because Jackson had ordered 
Governor Claiborne at the head of a regiment to have some 
soldiers stand guard over the body to see that it did not 
undertake to surrender the city while he was keeping the 
British out, the shouts of a rescued people on Jackson's 
entrance into the city had not died away when the Legisla- 
ture passed resolutions complimenting by name all the 
officers of high rank in the army except the General in 
command. The list included Generals Coffee, Carroll, 
Thomas, Adair, Colonel Hinds, and others. To empha- 
size the intended insult, certified copies of these resolutions 
handsomely done up were sent through the Governor of the 



ANDREW JACKSON. 349 

State to the respective officers so complimented. To the 
copy sent that gallant officer, General Coffee, who, with 
his men, had for four days remained in the swamp and 
slept on brush piles to keep above the water, he sent a reply 
containing a well-merited rebuke. He said: "While we 
indulge the pleasing emotions that are thus produced, we 
should be guilty of great injustice, as well to merit as to 
our own feelings, if we withheld from the commander-in- 
chief, to whose wisdom and exertions we are so much 
indebted for our success, the expression of our highest 
admiration and applause. To his firmness, his skill and his 
gallantry, to that confidence and unanimity among all ranks 
produced by those qualities, we must chiefly ascribe the 
splendid victories in which we esteem it a happiness and an 
honor to have borne a part." 

This pussillanimous attempt to minimize the deeds and 
the fame of the city's benefactor and the successful 
defender of the nation's honor, passed without notice and 
without a word by General Jackson. A few days after this 
a paragraph appeared in the Louisiana Gazette to the effect 
that a flag had just arrived from Admiral Cochrane to 
General Jackson, officially announcing the conclusion of a 
treaty of peace between the United States and the British 
Commissioners in the Netherlands, and requiring a suspen- 
sion of arms. There was not a word of truth in this state- 
ment, and General Jackson at once sent to the editor of the 
paper the following communication, which in all General 
Jackson's political contests became so famous as his auto- 
cratic muzzling of the press : 

"Sir: The Commanding General having seen a publica- 
tion which issued from your press today, stating that *a 
flag had just arrived,' etc., requires that you will hasten to 
remove any improper impression which so unauthorized 
and incorrect a statement may have made. 

"No request, either direct or virtual, has been made to 



350 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

him by the commander of either the land or naval forces 
of Great Britain for a suspension of arms. The letter of 
'Bathurst to the Lord Mayor/ which furnishes the only 
official information that has been communicated, will not 
allow the supposition that a suspension of hostilities is meant 
or expected, until the treaty signed by the respective com- 
missioners shall have received the ratification of the Prince 
Regent and of the President of the United States. 

"The Commanding General again calls upon his fellow- 
citizens and soldiers to recollect that it is yet uncertain 
whether the articles which have been signed at Ghent for 
the re-establishment of peace will be approved by those 
whose approbation is necessary to give efficiency to them. 
Until that approbation is given and properly announced, 
he would be wanting to the important interests which have 
been confided to his protection if he permitted any relaxa- 
tion in the army under his command. How disgraceful, as 
well as disastrous, would it be, if, by surrendering ourselves 
credulously and weakly to newspaper publications — often 
proceeding from ignorance, but more frequently from dis- 
honest designs — we permitted an enemy, whom we have so 
lately and so gloriously beaten, to regain the advantages he 
has lost and triumph over us in turn. 

"The general order issued on the 19th expresses the feel- 
ings, the views, and the hopes which the Commanding 
General still entertains. Henceforward, it is expected that 
no publication of the nature of that herein alluded to and 
censured will appear in any paper of the city, unless the 
editor shall have previously ascertained its correctness, and 
gained permission for its insertion from the proper source." 

Let it be remembered that up to this time the British 
army in the ships at the mouth of the Mississippi River, 
while safe at sea, was making efforts to ascend the river, 
and up to the 19th of January the brave Major Overton, 
with his flag nailed up so it could not come down, was 
fighting a fight that would do honor to any sea captain. 
Whether the attack on Fort Phillips meant to flank him or 



ANDREW JACKSON. 351 

to check his pursuit of the fleeing British, it was a condi- 
tion which Jackson could not shut his eyes to. 

To the note sent the editor the following reply was made : 

"On Tuesday we published a small handbill, containing 
such information as we had conceived correct, respecting 
the signing of preliminaries of peace between the American 
and British Commissioners at Ghent. We have since been 
informed from the headquarters that the information 
therein contained is incorrect, and we have been ordered to 
publish the following, to do away the evil that might arise 
from our imprudence. Every man may read for himself 
and think for himself (thank God, our thoughts are as yet 
unshackled), but as we have been officially informed that 
New Orleans is a camp, our readers may not expect us to 
take the liberty of expressing our opinion as we might in a 
free city. We cannot submit to have a censor of the press 
in our office, and as we are ordered not to publish any 
remarks without authority, we shall submit to be silent until 
we can speak with safety — except making our paper a sheet 
of shreds and patches — a mere advertiser for our mercantile 
friends." 

The perilous situation, while the attempt was being made 
to pass Fort Phillips and ascend the river — indeed, only a 
great victory, but the war not ended — was lost sight of by 
the members of the Legislature and all the disloyal element 
which had been restrained by a strictly military occupation 
of the city, and now that the city was saved from rapine 
and pillage, this element demanded that all restrictions 
should be promptly removed. 

General Jackson, like the soldier he was, looking to the 
real situation, and confirmed in the merit of restraint on the 
mongrel population which now threatened disaster and 
defeat of the results gained, saw at once the necessity of 
maintaining intact not only his army, but his power over the 
rebellious element, at this most critical moment. Refusing 
to rescind the order declaring martial law, the vicious ele- 



352 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

ment became boisterous and threatening. The hostility was 
carried to the extent of a large part of the French popu- 
lation, doubtless under a suggestion of members of the 
Legislature, taking shelter and claiming exemption under 
the French Consul, M. Toussard, and the French to a great 
extent, even those who had been naturalized, soon had their 
pockets lined with free papers signed by this Consul. 

It was this extraordinary condition of things that brought 
General Jackson up to the imperative duty, not of declaring 
martial law, but enforcing it, for when disloyalty in the 
Legislature appeared, he had declared martial law to pre- 
vent an attempt to surrender the city. This brought the 
conflict that has taken a wider range than any other judi- 
cial and constitutional question that has been raised since 
the Government was formed, taxing the ability, the genius, 
of the great lawyers of the time, and of both Houses of 
Congress, and of politicians of all parties, until the ques- 
tion was finally settled on the principle announced by 
General Jackson when brought before the court at the time 
by a writ of contempt. 

The discussion in one shape and another lasted twenty- 
eight years, taxing the genius of Webster, Calhoun, Clay 
and Benton, together with the leading politicians and law- 
yers of the entire country. 

But to proceed with the history. On March 5th the 
following article appeared in the French language in a New 
Orleans paper. This was after General Jackson had ordered 
the French Consul and all Frenchmen, not citizens of the 
United States, to leave the city, and not come within 120 
miles until martial law was declared off: 

"Mr. Editor: To remain silent on the last general orders, 
directing all the Frenchmen who now reside in New Orleans 
to leave it within three days, and to keep at a distance of 120 
miles, would be an act of cowardice which ought not to be 
expected from a citizen of a free country; and when every 



ANDREW JACKSON. 353 

one laments such an abuse of authority, the press ought to 
denounce it to the people. 

"In order to encourage a communication between both 
countries, the seventh and eighth articles of the treaty of 
cession secure to the French who come to Louisiana certain 
commercial advantages, which they are to enjoy during a 
term of twelve years, which are not yet expired. At the 
expiration of that term they shall be treated in the same 
manner as the most favored nation. A peace, which noth- 
ing is likely to disturb, uniting both nations, the French 
have, until this moment, been treated in the United States 
with that regard which a great people deserve and require, 
even in its reverses, and with that good will which so emi- 
nently distinguish the American Government in its relations 
with foreign nations. In such circumstances, what can be 
the motives which have induced the Commander-in-Chief 
of the Seventh IMilitary District to issue general orders of 
so vexatious a nature? When the foreigners of every 
nation, when the Spaniards and even the English, are 
suffered to remain unmolested among us, shall the French 
alone be condemned to ostracism because they rendered such 
great services? Had they remained passive spectators of 
the late events — could their sentiments toward us be 
doubted ? — then we might merely be surprised at the course 
now pursued with regard to them. But how are we to 
restrain our indignation when we remember that these very 
Frenchmen who are now to be exiled have so powerfully 
contributed to the preservation of Louisiana, without speak- 
ing of the corps who so eminently distinguished themselves, 
in which we see a number of Frenchmen either as officers or 
privates ? How can we forget that they were French artil- 
lerists who directed and served some of those cannons which 
so greatly annoyed the British forces ? Can any one flatter 
himself that such important services are so soon forgotten? 
No; they are engraved in everlasting characters on the 
hearts of all the inhabitants of Louisiana, and they will play 
a brilliant part in the history of our country. And when 
those brave men ask no other reward but to be permitted 
peaceably to enjoy among us the rights secured to them by 
treaties and the laws of America, far from sharing in the 
sentiments which have dictated the general order, we avail 

23 



354 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

ourselves of this opportunity to give them a public testimony 
of our gratitude. 

"Far from us the idea that there can be a single French- 
man so pusillanimous as to forsake his country, merely to 
please the military commander of the district, and in order 
to avoid the proscription to w^hich he has chosen to condemn 
them. We may, therefore, expect to see them repair to the 
consul of their nation, there to renew the act which binds 
them to their country. But, supposing that, yielding to a 
' sentiment of fear, they consent to cease to be French citi- 
zens, would they, by such an adjuration, become American 
citizens? No; certainly they would not. The man who 
might be powerful enough to denationalize them would not 
be powerful enough to give them a country. It is better, 
therefore, for a man to remain a faithful Frenchman than 
to sufifer himself to be scared even by martial law — a law 
useless when the presence of the foe and honor call us to 
arms, but which becomes degrading when their shameful 
flight permits us to enjoy a glorious rest, which terror ought 
not to disturb. 

"Is it possible that the Constitution and the laws of our 
country have left it in the power of the several commanders 
of military districts to dissolve all at once the ties which 
unite America to the nations of Europe? Is it possible that 
peace or war depend upon their caprice and the friendship 
or enmity they might entertain for any nation ? We do not 
hesitate to declare that nothing of the kind exists. The 
President alone has, by law, the right to adopt against alien 
enemies such measures as the state of war may render neces- 
sary; and, for that purpose, he must issue a proclamation. 
But this is a power which he cannot delegate. It is by 
virtue of that law, and of a proclamation, that the subjects 
of Great Britain were removed from our ports and sea- 
shores. But we do not know any law authorizing General 
Jackson to 'apply to alien friends a measure which the Pres- 
ident of the United States himself has only the right to 
adopt against alien enemies. 

"Our laws protect strangers who come to settle or reside 
among us. To the sovereign alone belongs the right of 
depriving them of that protection ; and all those who know 
how to appreciate the title of an American citizen, and who 



ANDREW JACKSON. 355 

are acquainted with their prerogatives, will easily under- 
stand that by the sovereign I do by no means intend to 
designate a major general or any other military commander, 
to whom I willingly grant the power of issuing general 
orders like the one of having them executed. 

"If the last general order has no object but to inspire in 
us a salutary fear, it is only destined to be read. If it is 
not to be followed by any act of violence, if it is only to be 
executed by those who may choose to leave the city in order 
to enjoy the pure air of the country, we shall forget that 
extraordinary order. But should anything else happen, we 
are of opinion that the tribunals will, sooner or later, do 
justice to the victims of that illegal order. 

"Every alien friend who shall continue to respect the laws 
which rule our country will continue to be entitled to their 
protection. Could that general order be applied to us, we 
should calmly wait until we were forced by violence to obey 
it, well convinced of the firmness of the magistrates who are 
the organs of the law in this part of the Union, and the 
guardians of public order. 

"Let us conclude by saying that it is high time the laws 
should resume their empire; that the citizens of this State 
should return to the full enjoyment of their rights; that, in 
acknowledging that we are indebted to General Jackson for 
the preservation of our city and the defeat of the British, 
we do not feel much inclined, through gratitude, to sacrifice 
any of our privileges, and, less than any other, that of 
expressing our opinion of the acts of his administration; 
that it is time the citizens accused of any crime should be 
rendered to their natural judges and cease to be brought 
before special or military tribunals, a kind of institution held 
in abhorrence, even in absolute governments; that, after 
having done enough for glory, the moment of moderation 
has arrived; and, finally, that the acts of authority which 
the invasion of our country and our safety may have ren- 
dered necessary are, since the evacuation of it by the enemy, 
no longer compatible with our dignity and our oath of 
making the Constitution respected." 

This article appeared in the Louisiana Courier. General 
Jackson sent an order to the editor, commanding him to 



356 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

appear immediately at headquarters. The name of the 
author was demanded and given. It was Mr. LouilHer, a 
member of the Legislature. Jackson immediately sent a 
squad of soldiers to arrest him, which was done on one of 
the streets of the city. When the officer of the squad 
tapped him on the shoulder and told him he was a prisoner, 
he called on the bystanders to bear witness of his arrest. 
At the moment of the arrest there was a lawyer named P. L. 
Morel standing by, who rushed up to him and said : 'I am a 
lawyer; at your service,' and he was retained. I am glad 
this lawyer's name has been preserved. I always supposed 
he was the father of the Shister family. This arrest was 
made at 12 o'clock on March 5th. Then things went rap- 
idly. Here are the proceedings : 

"Louis Louaillier, an inhabitant of this district, member 
of the House of Representatives of the State of Louisiana, 
humbly showeth that he has been this day illegally arrested 
by F. Amehmg, an officer in the Forty-fourth Regiment, 
who informed your petitioner that he did arrest your peti- 
tioner agreeable to orders given to him (the said F. Ame- 
lung) by his Excellency, Major General Jackson, and that 
your said petitioner is now illegally detained by said orders. 

"Wherefore your petitioner prays that a writ of habeas 
corpus be issued to bring him before your honor, that he 
may be dealt with according to the Constitution and the 
laws of the United States. P. L, Morel, 

'^ Attorney for the Petitioner. 



ff 



"Let the prayer of the petition be granted, and the peti- 
tioner be brought before me at 11 o'clock tomorrow, 
March 6th. Dom. A. Hall." 

"March 5th." 

"To His Excellency, Major General Jackson: 

"Sir : I have the honor to inform your Excellency that 
as counsel I have made aplication to his honor, Dom. A. 
Hall, Judge of the District Court of the United States, for 



ANDREW JACKSON. 357 

a writ of habeas corpus in behalf of Mr. Louillier, who 
conceived that he was illegally arrested by order of your 
Excellency; and that the said writ has been awarded, and 
IS returnable tomorrow, 6th instant, at 1 1 o'clock a. m. 

"I have the honor to be your Excellency's most humble 
and obedient servant, 

"P. L. MoREL^ Counsellor at Law." 

"Headquarters Seventh Military District, 

"New Orleans, March 5, 181 5. 
"Having received proof that Dominick A. Hall has been 
aiding and abetting and exciting mutiny within my camp, 
you will forthwith order a detachment to arrest and confine 
hirn, and report to me as soon as arrested. You will be 
vigilant ; the agents of our enemy are more numerous than 
was expected. You will be guarded against escapes. 

"A. Jackson, 
''Major General Commanding.'* 

"Dr. William E. Butler is ordered to accompany the 
detachment and point out the man. 

"A. Jackson, 
''Major General Commanding." 

At 5 o'clock on the 5th, it being Sunday, Louis Louillier 
and Dominick A. Hall were both in the same jail. 



358 LIFE AND TIMES OF 



CHAPTE}R XXIX. 

HALL ARRESTED JACKSON JACKSON IN COURT JACK- 

SON's FINE PAID_, AND REMITTED AFTER TWENTY-SEVEN 
YEARS. 

A LEADING object of this work is to remove 
erroneous beliefs, founded in the writings of deeply 
prejudiced writers, and if possible to put before the 
public the true character of General Jackson — the man as 
he was — a man of a warm, genial nature, a kind, loving 
heart, but who, in the discharge of public duties, knew noth- 
ing but his country and his obligations to it. 

If there was in his whole life a well-defined trait of char- 
acter (and all his traits of character were well defined) on 
which there might be unfriendly plausible criticism, it was 
his stern, unbending discharge of duty as he saw it, and 
especially in dealing with men who were persistently rebel- 
lious to rightful authority. With a heart overflowing with 
kindness and sympathy for every human being, over the 
protests and appeals of influence and friendship, he executed 
the judgments of court-martial in three cases where the 
penalties were death, but all under circumstances of great 
aggravation, and where the offenses showed persistent and 
defiant willfulness in disobedience to law or in the commis- 
sion of crime. I would not say Jackson had no mercy for 
lawbreakers. He had, but it was when the disobedience 
so affected the public good, was so demoralizing as to 
become terribly contagious if not rebuked in a manner to 
make an example, where the sacrifice of human life itself 
was the only assurance against a calamitous effect on the 
public, that he seemed severe. 



ANDREW JACKSON. 359 

There was nothing heartless in his approval of the action 
of his courts-martial in the cases referred to by prejudiced 
critics, but, on the contrary, the greatest pain, and as I verily 
believe in each case, after invoking the guidance of greater 
wisdom; for of all our public men, Jackson was less 
troubled with doubts and freer from agnosticism than any. 
His whole life shows a conviction and a reliance on a power 
and a wisdom greater than his own. To the day of his 
death, he believed it was a guidance greater than his that 
enabled him to save his country from a great calamity in 
overcoming the British at New Orleans. 

Taking up the thread of history where it was left in the 
last chapter: There was nothing bolder in the life of this 
bold man than in putting a United States Judge in jail, and 
no act of his public life can be more successfully defended. 
If Jackson was right in declaring martial law, which had 
been fully approved by Judge Hall himself, then it was not 
the business of the judge to say when the danger was 
removed, but of the commanding general. Jackson took 
Judge Hall and Louaillier out of jail and sent them out of 
the city. When the treaty was approved and made known 
to General Jackson, he at once vacated his order of martial 
law, and all who had been sent away were promptly notified 
that they could return. 

As soon as Judge Hall returned he went on the bench and 
issued an order for the arrest of General Jackson for con- 
tempt. The charge was, however, much broader when 
entered. It was that said Major General Andrew Jackson 
show cause why an attachment should not be awarded 
against him for contempt of this court, in having 
wrested from the clerk aforesaid an original order of 
the honorable judge of this court for the issuance of a writ 
of habeas corpus in the case of a certain Louis Louaillier, 
then imprisoned by the said Major General Andrew Jackson,' 
and for detaining the same; also for disregarding the said 



360 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

writ of habeas corpus, when issued and served; in having 
imprisoned the honorable judge of this court, and for other 
contempts, as stated by the witnesses. 

In pursuance of the order General Jackson appeared in 
court in citizen's dress, and offered to make defense, but the 
judge declined to hear arguments on the merits of the case. 
When Jackson commenced his argument with a carefully 
prepared paper in his hand, the court stopped him and fined 
him $i,ooo. The order is in these words : 

"On this day appeared in person Major General Andrew 
Jackson, and, being duly informed by the court that an 
attachment had issued against him for the purpose of bring- 
ing him into court, and the district attorney having filed 
interrogatories, the court informed General Jackson that 
they would be tendered to him for the purpose of answering 
thereto. The said General Jackson refused to receive them 
or to make any answer to the said interrogatives, where- 
upon the court proceeded to pronounce judgment, which 
was that Major General Andrew Jackson do pay a fine of 
$ 1,000 to the United States." 

When Jackson was brought into court there was great 
excitement, and Jackson alone by getting up and reminding 
the crowd that this was a court and appealing for order, 
enabled the court to proceed. The crowd seemed hard to 
manage, and the judge proposed to adjourn to some other 
place, but Jackson said no, and assured the judge that he 
would be responsible for order. Mr. Parton gives the 
following account of this proceeding, basing it mainly on 
the story of Nolte, the fellow who invented the story about 
the cotton bales, and was otherwise conspicuous as a manu- 
facturer of history. Nolte says : 

"It is not to be inferred from the conduct of the people 
in the court room that the course of General Jackson, in 
maintaining martial law so long after the conclusion of 



ANDREW JACKSON. 361 

peace was morally certain, was generally approved by the 
people of New Orleans. It was not. It was approved by 
many, forgiven by most, resented by a few. An effort was 
made to raise the amount of the General's fine by a public 
subscription, to which no one was allowed to contribute 
more than a dollar. But Nolte tells us (how truly I know 
not) that, after raising with difficulty one hundred and sixty 
dollars, the scheme was quietly given up. He adds that 
the court room on the day of the General's appearance was 
occupied chiefly by the Barratarians and the special parti- 
sans of the General." 

Now, Nolte knew better than this, and Parton knew Nolte 
was a discredited witness. 

The facts are, as Eaton describes the scene when the trial 
was over, that he was seized and forcibly hurried from the 
hall to the streets, amidst the reiterated cries of huzza for 
Jackson from the immense concourse that surrounded him. 
They presently met a carriage in which a lady was riding, 
when, politely taking her from It, the General was made, 
spite of entreaty, to occupy her place; the horses being 
removed, the carriage was drawn and halted at the coffee- 
house, into which he was carried, and thither the crowd 
followed, huzzaing for Jackson and menacing the judge. 
Having prevailed on them to hear him, he addressed them 
with great feeling and earnestness; implored them to run 
into no excesses; that if they had the least gratitude for his 
services, or regard for him personally, they could evince it 
in no way so satisfactorily as by assenting, as he most freely 
did, to the decision which had just been pronounced against 
him. Upon reaching his quarters he sent back an aide-de- 
camp to the court room with a check on one of the city 
banks for a thousand dollars; and thus the offended 
majesty of the law was supposed to be avenged. 

Now there is nothing better established than that Nolte 
was telling tales, which should never have been repeated by 
Parton, in saying there was an attempt made to raise the 



362 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

$i,ooo which failed when $i6o was subscribed. Mr. 
Benton, in his "Thirty Years in the Senate," gives all the 
facts. The ladies of New Orleans promptly raised the 
$1,000, but Jackson declined to receive it and sent his own 
check, 

Parton must have been eager to retail gossip of gossipers 
to publish this petty libel from Nolte, when there is nothing 
in American history hardly so well established as the facts, 
even down to the minutia of this whole affair. The Con- 
gress of the United States always stood ready, and it was 
often suggested to General Jackson that the Government 
would pay back thi^ money, which he always as promptly 
refused, unless it was under a resolution completely justify- 
ing him in declaring martial law and deciding for himself 
when he could safely raise it. In fact, Jackson while in 
office forbade his friends bringing it up, but twenty-seven 
years after he had paid the fine, and after Jackson had 
retired from office. Senator Linn, of Missouri, offered a 
resolution to refund the money. Upon notice in the news- 
papers that Senator Linn had given notice of his purpose, 
the General, from his home, wrote Senator Linn the follow- 
ing letter : 

"Having observed in the newspapers that you had given 
notice of your intention to introduce a bill to refund to me 
the fine (principal and interest) imposed by Judge Hall, for 
the declaration of martial law at New Orleans, it was my 
determination to address you on the subject, but the feeble 
state of my health has heretofore prevented it. I felt that 
it was my duty to thank you for this disinterested and volun- 
tary act of justice to my character, and to assure you that 
it places me under obligations which I shall always acknowl- 
edge with gratitude. 

"It is not the amount of the fine that is important to me, 
but it is the fact that it was imposed for reasons which were 
not well founded, and for the exercise of an authority which 
was necessary to the successful defense of New Orleans, and 



ANDREW JACKSON. 363 

without which it must now be obvious to all the world the 
British would have been in possession, at the close of the 
war, of the great emporium of the West. In this point of 
view it seems to me that the country is interested in the 
passage of the bill ; for exigencies like those which existed 
at New Orleans may again arise, and a commanding general 
ought not to be deterred from taking the necessary responsi- 
bility by the reflection that it is in the power of a vindictive 
judge to impair his private fortune and place a stain upon 
his character which cannot be removed. I would be the last 
man on earth to do any act which would invalidate the prin- 
ciple that the military power should always be subjected to 
the civil power, but I contend that at New Orleans no 
measure was taken by me which was at war with this prin- 
ciple, of which, if properly understood, was not necessary 
to preserve it. 

"When I declared martial law. Judge Hall was in the city, 
and he visited me often, when the propriety of its declaration 
was discussed, and was recommended by the leading and 
patriotic citizens. Judging from his actions, he appeared 
to approve it. The morning the order was issued he was 
in my office, and when it was read he was heard to exclaim, 
'Now the country may be saved; without it, it was lost.* 
How he came afterwards to unite with the treacherous and 
disaffected, and, by the exercise of his power, endeavored 
to paralyze my exertions, it is not necessary here to explain. 
It was enough for me to know that if I was excusable in the 
declaration of martial law in order to defend the city when 
the enemy were beseiging it, it was right to continue it until 
all danger was over. For full information on this part of 
the subject, I refer you to my defense under Judge Hall's 
rule for me to appear and show cause why an attachment 
should not issue for a contempt of court. This defense is 
in the appendix to Eaton's 'Life of Jackson.' 

"There is no truth in the rumor which you notice that 
the fine he imposed was paid by others. Every cent of it 
was paid by myself. When the sentence was pronounced, 
Abner L. Duncan (who had been one of my aide-de-camps, 
and was one of my counsel), hearing me request Major 
Reed to repair to my quarters and bring the sum, not intend- 
ing to leave the room until the fine was paid, asked the 



36'! LIFE AND TIMES OF 

clerk if he would take his check. The clerk replied in the 
affirmative, and Mr. Duncan gave the check. I then 
directed my aides to proceed forthwith, get the money, and 
meet Mr. Duncan's check at the bank and take it up, which 
was done. These are the facts, and Major Davezac, now 
in the Assembly of New York, can verify them. 

"It is true, as I was informed, that the ladies did raise the 
amount to pay the fine and costs; but when I heard of it, 
I advised them to apply it to the relief of the widows and 
orphans that had been made so by those who had fallen in 
the defense of the country. It was so applied, as I had 
every reason to believe; but Major Davezac can tell you 
more particularly what was done with it." 

The whole facts of this deeply interesting play in our 
national history can only be known by seeing General Jack- 
son's defense, which he proposed to make when put on trial, 
but which he was not allowed to read. It was filed in court. 
It is one of the most interesting chapters in our history. 
While Parton filled up a book of more than 2,000 pages, 
much of it trash, he declined to publish any part of this 
defense. It takes this paper, drawn up at the time, to show 
why martial law was declared and maintained. 

The defense made by General Jackson when arraigned 
(left out by Parton) is not an insignificant scrap in his life; 
it is a chapter without which any history is imperfect. 
Nothing in Jackson's life is more Jacksonian than the 
defense — it is the reasons for martial law given by him 
who knew them better than any man living. In all the 
debates that came in both Houses of Congress, no man 
ever put the argument for his defense better than he did 
himself when all the city was excited but himself. 

After giving what he found by many letters and other 
valuable information collected about the disloyalty of the 
Legislature and the danger from secret enemies and spies, 
he proceeds : 



ANDREW JACKSON. 365 

"With the impressions this correspondence was calculated 
to produce, the respondent arrived in this city, where, in 
different conversations, the same ideas were enforced, and 
he was advised, not only by the Governor of the State, but 
very many influential persons, to proclaim martial law, as 
the only means of producing union, overcoming disaffec- 
tion, detecting treason, and calling forth the energies of the 
country. This measure was discussed and recommended to 
the respondent, as he well recollects, in the presence of the 
judge of this honorable court, who not only made no objec- 
tion, but seemed, by his gestures and silence, to approve of 
its being adopted. These opinions, respectable in them- 
selves, derived greater weight from that which the Governor 
expressed of the Legislature then in session. He repre- 
sented their loyalty very doubtful ; ascribed design to their 
prolonged session, and appeared extremely desirous that 
they should adjourn. 

"The respondent had also been informed, that in the 
House of Representatives the idea that a very considerable 
part of the State belonged to the Spanish Government and 
ought not to be represented had been openly advocated and 
favorably heard. The co-operation of the Spaniards with 
the English was at that time a prevalent idea. This infor- 
mation, therefore, appeared highly important. He deter- 
mined to examine, with the utmost care, all the facts that 
had been communicated to him, and not to act upon the 
advice he had received until the clearest demonstration 
should have determined its propriety. He was then almost 
an entire stranger in the place he was sent to defend, and 
unacquainted with the language of a majority of the inhab- 
itants. While these circumstances were unfavorable to his 
obtaining information, on the one hand, they precluded, on 
the other, a suspicion that his measures were dictated by 
personal friendship, private animosity, or party views. 
Uninfluenced by such motives, he began his observations. 
He communicated with men of every description in seeking 
information. He believed that even then he discovered 
those high qualities which have since distinguished those 
brave defenders of their country, that the variety of lan- 
guage, the difference of habit, and even the national preju- 
dices which seemed to divide the inhabitants might be made. 



366 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

if properly directed, the source of the most honorable emula- 
tion. Delicate attentions were necessary to foster this 
disposition, and the highest energy to restrain the effects 
that such an assemblage was calculated to produce. He 
determined to avail himself of both, and with this view 
called to his aid the impulse of national feeling, the higher 
motives of patriotic sentiment and the noble enthusiasm of 
valor. They operated in a manner which history will 
record ; all who could be influenced by those feelings rallied 
without delay round the standard of their country. Their 
efforts, however, would have been unavailing if the disaf- 
fected had been permitted to counteract them by their 
treason, the timid to paralyze them by their example, and 
both to stand aloof in the hour of danger and enjoy the 
fruit of victory without participating in the danger of defeat. 
"A disciplined and powerful army was on our coast, com- 
manded by officers of tried valor and consummate skill; 
their fleet had already destroyed the feeble defense on which 
alone we could rely, to prevent their landing on our shores. 
Their point of attack was uncertain — a hundred inlets were 
to be guarded by a force not sufficient in number for one; 
we had no lines of defense; treason lurked among us, and 
only waited the moment of expected defeat to show itself 
openly. Our men were few, and of those few not all were 
armed; our prospect of aid and supply was distant and 
uncertain; our utter ruin, if we failed, at hand and inev- 
itable; everything depended on the prompt and energetic 
use of the means we possessed on calling the whole force 
of the community into action ; it was a contest for the very 
existence of the State, and every nerve was to be strained 
in its defense. The physical force of every individual, his 
moral faculties, his property, and the energy of his example 
were to be called into action, and instant action. No delay, 
no hesitation, no inquiry about rights, or all was lost; and 
everything dear to man, his property, life, the honor of his 
family, his country, its Constitution and laws, were swept 
away by the avowed principles, the open practice of the 
enemy with whom we have had to contend. Fortifications 
were to be erected, supplies secured, arms sought for, requi- 
sitions made, the emissaries of the enemy watched, lurking 



ANDREW JACKSON. 367 

treason overawed, insubordination punished, and the con- 
tagion of cowardly example to be stopped. 

"In this crisis, and under a jfirm persuasion that none of 
those objects could be effected by the exercise of the ordi- 
nary powers confided to him, under a solemn conviction 
that the country committed to his care could be saved by 
that measure only from utter ruin, under a religious belief 
that he was performing the most important and sacred duty, 
the respondent proclaimed martial law. He intended by 
that measure to supersede such civil powers as in their 
operation interfered with those he was obliged to exercise. 
He thought, in such a moment, constitutional forms must 
be suspended for the permanent preservation of constitu- 
tional rights, and that there could be no question whether 
it were best to depart for a moment from the enjoyment of 
our dearest privileges, or have them wrested from us for- 
ever. He knew that if the civil magistrate were permitted 
to exercise his usual functions, none of the measures neces- 
sary to avert the awful fate that threatened us could be 
expected. Personal liberty cannot exist at a time when 
every man is required to become a soldier. Private property 
cannot be secured, when its use is indispensable to the public 
safety. Unlimited liberty of speech is incompatible with 
the discipline of a camp, and that of the press more danger- 
ous still when made the vehicle of conveying intelligence to 
the enemy, or exciting mutiny among the troops. To have 
suffered the uncontrolled enjoyment of any of those rights, 
during the time of the late invasion, would have been to 
abandon the defense of the country ; the civil magistrate is 
the guardian of those rights, and the proclamation of 
martial law was, therefore, intended to supersede the exer- 
cise of his authority so far as it interfered with the necessary 
restriction of those rights ; but no further." 

This paper is made prominent by Colonel Benton in his 
great work as a part of the history of the times, though it 
was not within the scope of his "Thirty Years in the United 
States Senate." 

Through a long public life, with combined forces, 
embodying the greatest talent in an age of giants, con- 



368 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

stantly renewing and pressing the fight against him ; some 
for declaring martial law and imprisoning a United States 
Judge; some sincerely believing a military hero should not 
hold high civil office ; some believing, under the inspiration 
of false teachers, that he was a man whose self-will subor- 
dinated his patriotism; some ambitious and jealous of his 
hold on the people, and many honestly differing with him 
on Democratic theory of government; so that through a 
lifetime this great aim was kept before the world, whether 
it was right or wrong, the best defense ever made for it was 
made by Jackson himself, when just back from driving the 
invaders from our soil, but still on guard in his country's 
service. 



ANDREW JACKSON. 369 



CHAPTER XXX. 

THE DEMURRER IN THE UNITED STATES SENATE OVER JUDGE 

hall's FINE JUDGE TAPPAN, OF OHIO, DEFENDS 

JACKSON — LONG CONTINUED PERSECUTION OF JACKSON 
FOR ARRESTING HALL — AGAIN PARTON SEEKS TO DIS- 
HONOR GENERAL AND MRS. JACKSON — THE BALL GIVEN 
IN HONOR OF THE GREAT TRIO — THE STUDENTS OF THE 
UNIVERSITY OF NASHVILLE GIVE JACKSON A RECEPTION 
WHEN HE RETURNS TO NASHVILLE. 

THE question of General Jackson's right to make a 
military camp of New Orleans by putting it under 
martial law, and the capital made of it by his 
enemies, fully justifies a continuation of the subject, at least 
to the extent of giving the reader the benefit of the great 
speech made by Judge Tappan, of Ohio, in the United States 
Senate before the final vote was taken. For twenty-seven 
years the enemies of General Jackson had held up to the 
American people as a great crime, and as the highest evi- 
dence of a lawless and reckless purpose, the act which of all 
others in our history was the greatest blessing to our 
common country — an act which saved a city from desola- 
tion, and the nation from closing up a protracted war in 
disgrace and bringing upon the whole people the deepest 

humiliation. 

Supplementing and sustaining General Jackson's argu- 
ment, prepared for the contempt case before Judge Hall, 
Judge Tappan, of Ohio, made a speech in the Senate that 
had much to do in removing all doubt from the public mind 
on Jackson's right to declare martial law and having the 
$i,ooo refunded to him. 

The persistent and long continued assailment of General 



24 



370 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

Jackson's character on the stump and in Congress for 
declaring martial law, making the impression on the public 
mind that it was a great national sin, treason to the Consti- 
tution, whose corner-stone is civil government, is the excuse 
for the somewhat elaborate discussion and presentation of 
the facts. In this work, so far, I have passed over much of 
the personal history of General Jackson, deeply interesting 
as it is, that I may give the more space to the truth of 
history, mainly the facts on which his defense rests in the 
issues which his enemies made. These issues were numer- 
ous — in fact, coming when he came on the stage, and 
ending with his life. No public man, reaching the highest 
stations in civil and military life, and standing to the front 
as he did, has been through a lifetime compelled to fight his 
way as did this man of destiny. No great conception of 
his — and his whole life was spent in thinking and acting in 
advance of others — ever passed pro forma. The public 
men, the big men of the country, the men who created and 
led parties and aspired to control them, the ambitious states- 
men of the age in which Jackson was before the public, 
were all his rivals in a sense. 

From the time he came into Tennessee, at twenty-one 
years old, until his body was consigned to its final resting 
place in the soil that he immortalized, when he said of a 
great British army just landed, "They shan't sleep on our 
soil," he was the central figure, whether in the community 
in which he lived, or at the head of the army which made 
famous the volunteer service, or as the leader of the people 
and at the head of the greatest nation in the world; no 
matter where nor who were his rivals, nor who assailed him, 
he was always as certainly at the front and in the lead as 
that Jupiter ranks his satellites. 

Of course this man had rivals — of course he had ene- 
mies — I say of course, for until there is a more complete 
regeneration in our race than has yet taken place, such a 



ANDREW JACKSON. 371 

man will have enemies and would-be rivals. Jackson's 
advance conceptions, and the boldness with which he 
enforced them, and the success he attained, put the whole 
American people in a stir. The big men fought him; 
fought his issues — it was the natural thing for them to do. 
They made issues with him which, by the ingenuity of great 
minds, have come down to us, and with the help of an 
unkind and unfriendly biographer, still in some degree 
becloud the name of the great Tennessean. Though the 
whole world besides may, in stupidity or lack of spirit, 
permit the clouds to hang over the great Tennessean, Ten- 
nessee cannot. One by one of the issues made with 
Jackson, and which are calculated to bring doubts where 
there ought to be certainty, should be met and the facts 
given, and one by one the clouds will be swept away. Who, 
when all the facts are put together, as I have done in the 
martial law assignment, will doubt for one moment the 
right, the wisdom, and the patriotism in declaring martial 
law at New Orleans? 

It is to meet and remove from the public mind, as far as 
possible, the false issues made by some of the great men of 
the times in political heat — issues, charges that outran the 
defense, and that have been persistently kept alive, that in 
part moved me to this work; but more especially to repel 
the charges of criminal ignorance and vile motives made 
by a designing and deeply prejudiced biographer. 

It has occurred to me that a people whose State claims 
him, whose ancestors were led by him to a righteous victory 
in arms that has nothing like it in history, a man whose 
genius ranks along with that of Cromwell and Charles XII 
of Sweden, and whose patriotism and statesmanship go 
along with those of the great Washington, but a people who 
have not enough of his noble nature and high sense of grat- 
itude, as well as pride of ancestry, to defend him when he 
sleeps from a libelous post mortem biographer, who assumes 



372 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

the place of a friend to give out to the reading world a 
tissue of spiteful, libelous, and in some sectional criticisms, 
beclouding the name and the life of the immortal hero, 
patriot, and statesman, and minimizing the deeds of the 
men who followed him — such a people cannot by enlight- 
ened lookers-on be regarded as the legitimate progeny of a 
glorious ancestry. 

The war was over and the victor the greatest hero of 
modern times, he at once set himself down in the city he 
had saved, and for twenty-four days devoted himself to 
settling accounts — claims that had been made in prosecuting 
the war. This done, and Mrs. Jackson having reached New 
Orleans, the General set about returning to Tennessee, 
which he did, with his wife and the little seven-year-old 
adopted son. Yes, back to his beloved Tennessee, the 
fourth return after he had been at the head of the army to 
hear the plaudits of the thousands that came to honor him. 
On his reaching Nashville, such an ovation as he received 
has not been given any other man in our history. 

He came not as did the Roman conquerors with the 
riches of a conquered people and with the conquered as 
slaves, but he came with the flag of his country that he had 
rescued from the hands of a powerful enemy who had cap- 
tured our flag at the very door of the Capitol. The people's 
great orator, Felix Grundy, was chosen, as he had been on 
the other occasions of the General's return. The speech 
was said to be one of Mr. Grundy's finest efforts, a review 
of facts showing the great Tennessean at the head of a 
Tennessee army teaching England a lesson to be remem- 
bered. General Jackson's reply was given in the papers, 
and was nine lines. It was as follows : 

"Sir, I am at a loss to express my feelings. The appro- 
bation of my fellow citizens is to me the richest reward. 
Through you, sir, I beg leave to assure them that I am this 



ANDREW JACKSON. 373 

day amply compensated for every toil and labor. In a war 
forced upon us by the multiplied wrongs of a nation who 
envied our increasing prosperity, important and dithcult 
duties were assigned me. I have labored to discharge them 
faithfully, having a single eye to the honor of my country 
The bare consciousness of having performed my duty would 
have been a source of great happiness, but the assurance that 
what I have done meets your approbation enhances that 
happiness greatly." 

This speech is wonderful in its modesty. 
Before leaving New Orleans the people of that once 
doomed but rescued city gave General Jackson a ball, and 
no people knew better how to show their appreciation of the 
man who was everything to them. Mr. Parton, in describ- 
ing this ball, only did what characterizes the entire work, 
having told about Jackson's great victory, an afterpart had 
to come, and like all the other afterparts to Jackson's great 
deeds, it was the author's libelous coloring, for, with Parton, 
Jackson was never allowed to accomplish a great deed of 
courage, heroism, or statesmanship without giving it an 
odor that was disagreeable, often much more; often the 
purpose could not be accomplished without a libelous state- 
ment, as in this case. As usual, when Parton wanted to 
give his libels a touch of humor, he called in his useful 
backing, Nolte, the notorious inventor of the cotton bale 
falsehood. So, on this occasion, he called in Nolte to aid 
him in giving General and Mrs. Jackson a character that 
would be pleasing to the people in some sections of the 
country, whose prejudices against the great Southerner 
had not abated at the time (1859) that Parton wrote his 
"Life of Jackson." 

Parton first gives an account of an interview between 
Jackson and Nolte, in which Nolte was setting up a claim 
for cotton goods, claimed to be taken by Jackson to clothe 
the soldiers, and in which he says Jackson used some d— ds 



374 LIFE AND TIMES OP 

in his treatment of Nolte's claim, and was otherwise curt in 
his language to the man who was of so much use to Parton 
in belittling a man who had triumphed over a British army 
that had taken Washington and brought desolation wherever 
it went in the Northern States. 

In the thousand misrepresentations of Jackson's real 
character by Parton, nothing is meaner than the miserable 
petty scandals which he and Nolte invented about the Gen- 
eral and Mrs. Jackson as a parting blessing when they were 
about to leave for home. He says Mrs. Jackson was homely 
in costume and speech, corpulent and very dark; says she 
was a strange figure among the elegant Creole ladies of the 
city; she had never visited any city but Nashville; that 
she confessed she knew nothing about fine clothes and fine 
company; that the ladies of New Orleans undertook the 
task of buying clothes and dressing her; that the artists of 
the city drew caricatures of her, in which the short, stout 
Mrs. General Jackson was expected to appear at the ball; 
that she was pictured standing upon a table while the ladies 
were lacing her stays, struggling to make a waist where a 
waist had been, but was not. This libel, for such it is, 
could have been invented only by a man whose malice went 
out against women. 

Mrs. Jackson was the daughter of the most wealthy and 
enterprising frontiersman of the Cumberland settlements; 
she was, perhaps, the best educated young woman in the 
country at the time of her marriage, and her letters, still 
extant, several of which I have published, show her to have 
considerable culture for people in a new country — not an 
educated woman in the sense the term is now used. And 
as to the General, if there was anything on earth he knew 
better than how to whip the British, it was how to be a 
gentleman. 

With a great deal of hesitancy I am republishing this 
scandal, this malicious piece of defamation about Mrs. 



ANDREW JACKSON. 375 

Jackson's ignorance at New Orleans, but only that I may 
denounce it as maliciously libelous. 

Think of newspaper caricatures of Mrs. Jackson, debasing 
her body and degrading the General as her husband, sent 
out by newspaper men while "Old Hickory" was in the city. 
How long would they have lived after the first paper 
appeared? More than that, think of Parton fifteen years 
after the old man was in his grave, as a sort of self-consti- 
tuted executor of Nolte, the liar, publishing this libelous 
morsel about Mrs. Jackson. There is said to be no passing 
between heaven and hell, or I might imagine the spirit of the 
great Tennessean leaving the shining court to yet scourge 
the defamers of Mrs. Jackson. 

Parton in his defamation went much further and drew a 
picture of the General and Mrs. Jackson at the ball, where, 
he says, after supper the elite people of New Orleans were 
treated to a most delicious pas de deux, in which the great 
conqueror and his spouse led the dance. The General, a 
long, haggard man, with the limbs of a skeleton, and 
Madame La General, a short, fat dumpling, the two like 
half-drunken Indians, bobbing up and down opposite each 
other, to the wild melody of "'Possum Up de Gum Tree," 
both jumping as high as possible. And all of which, he 
says, was to the enlightened people of New Orleans a more 
edifying spectacle than any European ballet could possible 
have furnished. 

This personal exhibition of General Jackson as a clown, 
making of himself and Mrs. Jackson a disgusting spectacle 
in a company of the most refined and elegant people to be 
found, is entirely distitute of truth. It was deliberately 
concocted by Nolte and maliciously published by Parton, to 
furnish food for all that part of New England that sang the 
chorus to the British press when it denounced the American 
people as bullies in bringing on the war of 1812 and cow- 
ards when it came to fighting, and it was only silenced by 



376 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

the crushing defeat at New Orleans. And while the New 
England clamor for peace on any terms, and the outcry of 
the Hartford Convention in its treason to its country were 
suppressed by Jackson's great triumph, it did not destroy 
the appetite, whose gnawing was malevolence with a spite- 
ful silence after Jackson brought back the flag they had 
surrendered. And it was to satisfy this suppressed hateful 
prejudice that led Parton into the utility of defamation. 

One part of this statement needs qualification. It was 
not all of New England that was against the war of 1812. 
Much of New England, not the press, was standing by the 
flag, as did their fathers in the Revolution. But at that 
time New England's business was not manufacturing, but 
she was in the carrying trade, and their ships had been land- 
locked, driven from the sea by England's infamous doctrine 
of the right of search. The war, righteous as it was, fight- 
ing for the freedom of the seas, interfered with their busi- 
ness, and they denounced it like Demetrius, who denounced 
the Christian religion because it broke up his business of 
making gods for the heathen. 

In addition to the grand reception given General Jackson 
when he came home, as hereinbefore shown, the students of 
the Nashville University, of whose board of trustees he 
had long been a member, visited him, and his speech to 
them is worthy of a place here. It was as follows : 

"Young Gentlemen : With lively feelings of pride and 
joy I receive your address. To find that even the youth of 
my country, although engaged in literary pursuits and 
exempt from military duty, are willing when the voice of 
patriotism calls, to abandon for a time the seat of the muses 
for privations of a camp, excites in my heart the warmest 
interest. The country which has the good fortune to be 
defended by soldiers animated by such feelings as those 
young gentlemen who were once members of the same liter- 
ary institution you now are, and whom I had the honor to 
command, will never be in danger from internal or external 



ANDREW JACKSON. 377 

foes. Their good conduct, on many trying occasions, will 
never be forgotten by their General. It is a source of par- 
ticular satisfaction to me that you duly appreciate the 
merits of those worthy and highly distinguished Generals, 
Carroll and Coffee. Their example is worthy imitation; 
and from the noble sentiments which you on this pccasion 
express. I entertain no doubt, if circumstances require, you 
will emulate their deeds of valor. It is to such officers and 
their brave associates in arms that Tennessee, in military 
achievements, can vie with the most renowned of her sister 
States. That your academic labors may be crowned with 
the fullest success, by fulfilling the highest expectations of 
your relatives and friends, is the ardent and sincere wish of 
my heart. Receive, my young friends, my prayers for your 
future health and prosperity." 

Tliis speech is a model — an example of good taste rarely 

equaled. 

So when a large number of his friends called in a body at 
the Hermitage he addressed them as follows : 

"The warm testimonials of your friendship and regard 
I receive, gentlemen, with the liveliest sensibility. The 
assurance of the approbation of my countrymen, and par- 
ticularly of my acquaintances and neighbors, is the most 
grateful offering that can be made me. It is a rich compen- 
sation for many sacrifices and many labors. I rejoice with 

' you, gentlemen, on the able manner in which the sons of 
America, during a most eventful and perilous conflict, have 
approved themselves worthy of the precious inheritance 
bequeathed to them by their fathers. They have given a 
new proof of how impossible it is to conquer freemen fight- 
ing in defense of all that is dear to them. Henceforward 
. we shall be respected by nations who, mistaking our charac- 
ter, had treated us with the utmost contumely and outrage. 
Years will continue to develop our inherent qualities, until, 
from being the youngest and weakest, we shall become the 

7 most powerful nation in the world. Such is the high des- 
tiny which I persuade myself Heaven has reserved for the 
sons of freedom. 



378 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

"I rejoice also with you, gentlemen, at the return of 
peace under circumstances so fortunate for our fame and 
our interest. In this happy state of things the inexhausti- 
ble resources of our country will be unfolded, and the great- 
ness for which she is designed be hastened to maturity. 
Amongst the private blessings thence to be expected I 
anticipate, with the highest satisfaction, the cultivation of 
that friendly intercourse with my neighbors and friends 
which has heretofore constituted so great a portion of my 
happiness." 



ANDREW JACKSON. 379 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

ENGLISH WRITERS ADMIT THAT THE ENTIRE LOSS IN KILLED 
AND WOUNDED AND BY DESERTION IN THE ARMY THAT 

CAME TO THE SOUTH WAS 4.000 THOSE NOT DEAD OR 

LOST WHEN THEY GOT BACK ARE SENT TO WELLINGTON 

IN THE BATTLE OF WATERLOO JACKSON AT HOME, 

THEN ORDERED TO WASHINGTON AND WAS AGAIN PUT TO 

WORK CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN GENERAL JACKSON 

AND GENERAL SCOTT. 

WHEN General Jackson got the news of the rati- 
fication of the treaty at Ghent, he at once sent 
an officer to General Lambert, who, with his 
army, was still in the ships at the mouth of the Mississippi. 
A letter written by this officer about the time and published, 
which contains some interesting features, is as follows : 

"We went down the river in a sixteen-oared barge, and 

had several respectable young gentlemen of the city with 

us, and a band of music furnished by them. We arrived 

at Dauphin Island in three days, and anchored abreast of 

the British camp about four o'clock in the afternoon and 

fired a salute, while the band played our favorite tunes of 

'Hail Columbia' and 'Yankee Doodle.' The shore was 

lined with hundreds of Englishmen, cheering over and over, 

as they knew by the flag at our masthead that we brought 

them the welcome news of peace. We remained on the 

island three days and were treated with every mark of 

attention and respect by all of them, and then proceeded on 

to Mobile to inform our army there of the news of peace. 

On our return we stopped again at Dauphin Island, and 

took several English officers on board and brought them 

up to town. All these officers had the greatest desire to see 

this city and our lines on the battleground, where we beat 

them so handsomely. We run them very hard about it, 



380 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

which they took in good humor, and they candidly acknowl- 
edged 'that they had fought many hard battles in France, 
Spain, etc., but never met with such play as they received 
from us Yankees.' After their retreat from New Orleans, 
they landed on Dauphin Island, which was then a desolate 
place, but now it looks like a complete town. They have 
about 8,000 men there, who are almost in a state of starva- 
tion. We are now supplying them with provisions of every 
kind." 

The British writers admit that in this campaign, after the 
army was landed at the mouth of the Mississippi and 
between that and the time the fleet sailed for England, the 
loss in killed and wounded and by desertion was fully 4,000 
men; General Lambert left with between 8,000 and 9,000 
men, and this army reached home in time to be sent to Wel- 
lington, and they were in the great battle of Waterloo six 
months later. 

General Jackson at home was not allowed much rest. 
Not content with the various receptions given the hero 
when he returned, the citizens of Nashville gave him a 
banquet, which was attended by many of the leading citi- 
zens and soldiers of the State. The Governor of the State, 
the same Governor Blount who had been the firm, loyal 
friend of the General from the time of the latter refusing to 
obey his order had come back from the Creek War, pre- 
sided, and when the dinner was over Governor Blount pre- 
sented the General one of the trophies so common about this 
time. Governor Blount, in a letter subsequently written, 
says: 

"Yesterday, at a dinner given by the citizens of this place 
and vicinity to Major General Andrew Jackson, I had the 
honor and pleasure to deliver in your name to that distin- 
guished patriot, citizen and hero, the truly elegant sword 
voted to be presented to him through your excellency. It 



^ ANDREW JACKSON. 381 

was presented in the dining-room in the presence of hun- 
dreds of his fellow-citizens, and was received by the General 
in a manner highly honorable to him and gratifying to 
those who were present." 

Mr. Parton, in one of his spasms of justice to the hero, 
pays this beautiful and truthful tribute to the great Ten- 
nesseean when he brings him back home after an almost 
continuous absence of nearly two years : 

"And so we dismiss the hero home to his beloved Hermi- 
tage, there to recruit his impaired energies by a brief 
period of repose. He had been absent from the Hermitage 
for the space of twenty-one months, with the exception of 
three weeks between the end of the Creek War and the 
beginning of the campaign of New Orleans. He needed 
rest almost as much as he deserved it. He had served his 
country well. In the way of fighting, nothing better has 
been done in modern times than the defense of the Gulf 
Coast by Andrew Jackson and the men he commanded. 
His conduct of the two campaigns was admirable and noble. 
It will bear the closest examination, and the better it is 
understood the more it will be applauded. The success of 
General Jackson's military career was due to three separate 
exertions of his will. 

"First, his resolve not to give up the Creek War when 
Governor Blount advised it, when General Coffee was sick, 
when the troops were flying homeward, when the General 
was almost alone in the wilderness. Second, in his deter- 
mination to clear the English out of Pensacola. Third, 
and greatest of all, his resolution to attack the British 
wherever and whenever they landed, no matter what the 
disparity of his forces. It was that resolve that saved New 
Orleans. And it is to be observed of these measures that 
they were all irregular, contrary to precedent, 'imprudent' 
measures, which no council of war ordered; measures 
which, failing, all the world would have hooted at — which, 
succeeding, the world can never praise enough."* 



* This is a tribute to General Jackson, no matter if Mr. Parton did write it, as sub- 
lime as it is truthful. 



382 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

These three exertions of his will furnish the evidence of 
generalship that make him the ranking- American general; 
they show what his whole life proved, that in a great emer- 
gency he took no counsel and made no failures. 

General Jackson spent the summer at home, but was in 
feeble health. Rest seemed to give the disease a chance to 
work on his feeble frame. But disease or no disease, broken 
bones or sound limbs, his life was one of drudgery. No 
public man kept as well up with his correspondence; it was 
the rarest exception to fail to answer a letter. In every 
way he was a man of details, through a long public life, all 
the time more or less a public servant, with a large discre- 
tion, he kept his accounts up and made his own settlements, 
always as particular in closing up a campaign or service of 
any kind as if it was the one business of his life. He had 
been in Tennessee but a short time until his worth in public 
affairs was discovered. He was taken up as attorney gen- 
eral, as judge, as constitution-maker, as member of the 
lower House of Congress, as United States Senator. The 
people seemed to know by intuition his worth, and were 
inclined to push him — to use him in their public affairs as 
if he had been assigned for duty. Above all, for many years 
he was major general of the State militia, and this, the 
study of military tactics and the organization of a citizen 
soldiery, was his delight above everything else. Then when 
he entered the wider services his successes, one after 
another, in disobeying orders, every act of disobedience 
being a lesson to the Government, as was always admitted 
sooner or later, he was taken up as the man of all work. 

It is undoubtedly true that the Government gladly laid 
its hands on him, as the State had done, as if he had been 
commissioned to attend to its affairs; but this was after he 
had shown his power in war. So, weak and feeble as he 
was, after twenty-one months of a campaign starving, fight- 
ing, disobeying orders, — a campaign of daring deeds, of 




THE OLD CABI N. 

HOME OF ANDREW JACKSON PRIOR TO THE ERECTION 
OF PRESENT HERMITAGE BUII-DING. 



ANDREW JACKSON. 383 

suffering, of resourceful energy, of self-reliance, and of 
victories, whose counterpart has not yet been found, rest- 
ing four months, he was ordered to Washington for con- 
sultation. 

Leaving the Hermitage barely able to ride horseback, 
but riding slowly through Tennessee and Virginia, the peo- 
ple everywhere flocked to see him. At Lynchburg, from the 
country far and near, the people came. The ex-President 
of the United States, Mr. Jefferson, though then a very old 
man, made a long day's journey to meet him. The compli- 
mentary toast offered at the banquet by Mr. Jefferson was : 

"Honor and gratitude to those who have filled the meas- 
ure of their country's honor." 

Nine more days horseback carried him to Washington, 
and such a reception was never given any public man at the 
Capitol. The hero himself was now in Washington. The 
wonders of his campaign came up afresh — came on the 
people as if they had not before heard them ; the man himself 
was there — they could hardly believe it. Yes, the man was 
there who had whipped the nation's enemy — an enemy that, 
like a great bully not satisfied, had come back to fight it over ; 
an enemy that, like vandals, had burned the Capitol and 
destroyed the public records; an enemy of trained soldiers 
that had burned the cities of the North and captured and 
driven before them the untrained militia from the Potomac 
to the lakes; an enemy that, fighting under the flag of a 
nation claiming to be the most civilized in the world, had 
massacred squads of soldiers when captured, and in the cit- 
ies when taken, had committed crimes not common among 
savages. The man was among them that cleared up three 
years of devastation, of bloodshed, of victory upon victory 
by the enemy, in one great victory, which had thrilled the 
nation from the Atlantic to the Mississippi and from the 
lakes to the gulf. 

Private dinners, public receptions, and one great public 



384 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

dinner was given. A writer of the times says, "The state- 
liness of his bearing and the suavity of his manner, pleased 
the gentlemen and won the ladies." 

But business was in order; the festivities ceased; the 
President and his Cabinet had a use for the great soldier, 
the man who could raise and command an army, fight and 
whip everything in the shape of an enemy that he came to, 
and at the same time keep his accounts with the Govern- 
ment up, was a treasure. He was the man the Government 
wanted. By consultation with General Jackson, and on his 
suggestion, the army was reduced to 10,000 men, with two 
Major Generals, one stationed at the North and one at the 
South; General Jackson was given the South and General 
Jacob Brown the North. The disasters in the North in the 
war that had just closed was the main reason why the Sec- 
retary of War invited General Jackson to Washington for 
consultation. 

The treaties with the Indians in closing up were threat- 
ening trouble about the new lines; so as quick as possible 
Jackson was at New Orleans to go on a commission for 
settling disputed questions about boundaries, and John 
Sevier was sent by the President to make surveys. 

General Jackson had so impressed the Government with 
his ability as a man of business and a diplomat, as well as a 
military commander, that the Government gave him a large 
discretion as Major General in dealing with the business 
matters in which the Government was interested. 

At New Orleans he held a grand review of the militia on 
the battle ground, which was witnessed by many thousands. 
While in New Orleans the gratitude of the people was 
shown in receptions, dinners and otherwise — in fact, in 
every way that it could be shown. 

When he left New Orleans he visited and held councils 
with the chiefs of the Creeks, Cherokees, Chickasaws, and 
Choctaws. The purpose was to have friendly "talks," con- 



ANDREW JACKSON. 385 

f erring with them in reference to their interests and rela- 
tions with the Government, and giving them assurances of 
the kindly intentions of the Government towards them. 

The Chickasaws were claiming a large territory north of 
the Tennessee River, mainly what is now West Tennessee, 
about one-third of the State of Tennessee. By a treaty 
which was satisfactory to the Government he induced them 
to give up their claim; their right to this territory rose no 
higher than mere claim, and the settlement simply removed 
a cloud. The rich country now called West Tennessee was 
at that time falling under the eye of the emigrant, and after- 
wards was rapidly settled up. The Chickasaws were also 
setting up a claim to a part of this land, but for which Jack- 
son had very little respect; however, for the sake of peace 
and in consideration of the good will to our government 
which this tribe had shown and to be continued, Jackson 
agreed to pay them for their claim $10,000 a year for ten 
years. 

The Cherokees had insisted when Jackson closed up with 
the Creeks at the end of the Creek War and made the Jack- 
son treaty, that he was taking part of their lands in the 
Mississippi Territory. Jackson did not believe their claim 
was well founded to any part of the Creek country, but they 
now renewed the claim, and Jackson paid them $10,000 a 
year for eight years. In all this Jackson displayed his wis- 
dom as well as his generosity and diplomatic sagacity. 

This done. General Jackson again returned to Nashville, 
to be received by his neighbors and friends and citizens gen- 
erally, all giving him another public reception — not for the 
trophies of war this time, but what was even dearer — the 
assurance of peace, what seemed to be and what was per- 
manent peace; not only permanent peace (with all the 
Southern tribes of Indians, except the runaways who had 
gone into the swamps of Florida and three years afterwards 
gave the country some trouble, which trouble, however, the 

25 



386 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

General settled up without much delay), but a settlement 
with all the Southern tribes in reference to claims which 
they were setting up to large sections of land in the State 
of Tennessee and in the Mississippi Territory. These 
transactions — settling Indian claims to lands — though mere 
clouds on the lands which he had got by treaty at the close 
of the Creek War, were wise, but form only a part of Jack- 
son's Indian policy hereafter to be shown. 

These sections of country, particularly the Tennessee 
section, were in great demand by immigrants — people who 
had been keeping off because unwilling to go upon lands to 
which the Indians were setting up any sort of claim. 

By General Jackson's wise and pacific policy — ^by his 
military successes, first, and then his statesmanship — the 
long continued savage wars were effectually ended. 

His vigorous and unprecedented prosecution of the war 
against the Creeks, the great ally of the British — the entire 
policy being his plan without a suggestion from the Federal 
Government and over the orders of the Governor of the 
State, who ranked him as a military officer — and then by 
his diplomacy and knowledge of the Indian character, mak- 
ing every movement as gentle, pacific and merciful as his 
war measures had been vigorous and relentless, he put an 
end to Indian hostilities. Ever after this all the Indian 
tribes in the South were friendly and easily controlled by 
kindness and justice. The Supreme Court of the United 
States at once fell into the policy adopted by General Jack- 
son and treated them as wards of the nation, making rules 
in reference to their lands — lands actually occupied by them 
— and in taxation, which lawyers everywhere recognize as 
straining the law in favor of a helpless and dependent peo- 
ple. Up to the time of the settlement of this country and 
the formation of our Government, savages had been called 
"infidels" and outlawed by extermination. 

The people of Tennessee rightfully regarded General 



ANDREW JACKSON. 387 

Jackson's service in securing the confidence of his Govern- 
ment to such an extent that he was given so large a discre- 
tion, and his diplomatic wisdom in settling all the questions 
about land claims as among the wisest of the many wise 
things he did. 

On his return to Nashville, in 1816, after having closed 
up this delicate business with the Southern Indian tribes, 
and when the Government had approved all he had done, 
and preparatory to his reception, the leading paper in Nash- 
ville said : 

"This great and glorious termination of a business that 
hung over this section of the Union like a portentous cloud, 
deserves to be commemorated; and we hope that suitable 
arrangements will be made by the citizens of Tennessee to 
receive the General on his return with that eclat he so richly 
merits, and that no time will be lost in returning thanks to 
the officers of the General Government for their prompt 
attention to the expressed wishes of the citizens of Ten- 
nessee." 

At this time, and long after, it was generally said that 
General Jackson never left home without returning, having 
done some great service for the nation or the State worthy 
of additional public honors; indeed, General Jackson had 
now reached the point where great actors on the theater of 
public life become dangerous — dangerous when their ambi- 
tion outruns their patriotism. If Tennessee had been a 
political entity without any Federal relations, Jackson with- 
out an army could have been made dictator. 

At this time Parton says of him: 

"It is not possible to overstate his popularity in his own 
State. He was its pride, toast, and glory. Tennesseans 
felt a personal interest in his honor and success. His old 
enemies either sought reconciliation with him or kept their 



388 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

enmity to themselves. His rank in the army, too, gave him 
unequaled social eminence, and to add to the other felici- 
ties of his lot his fortune now rapidly increased, as the entire 
income of his estate could be added to his capital, the pay 
of a major general being sufficient for the support of his 
family. He was forty-nine years old in 1816. He had 
riches, rank, power, renown, and all in full measure. Our 
old friend, 'Andy,' of a previous page has prospered in the 
world. What will he do in his altered circumstances?" 

The pregnant inquiry, "What will he do in his altered 
circumstances," after the compliment to his great popular- 
ity, was only a suggestive notice that there will be an after 

part. 

Such a prodigous outburst of great deeds and good things 
for Jackson, as is here given by Parton, seems from start to 
finish to be upon the principle that a fall, to be serious and 
hurtful, must be from a great elevation. This eulogy on 
General Jackson's popularity, riches, rank, power, and 
renown, a superabundance of good things, to those who are 
familiar with the book, is a sure guarantee that a postscript 
is held in reserve to be used as a counter irritant, and to 
show what a resourceful doctor the author is. The reserve 
force in this instance was an attack on Jackson for a corre- 
spondence between him and Gen. Winfield Scott, and in 
which the author intensifies and makes clear his malice by 
interlarding some condiments along with a most offensive 
dish. The dish and the condiments are found in the follow- 
ing characteristic paragraphs : 

"His patriotism was real, but his personality was power- 
ful, and the two were so intermingled with and lost in one 
another that he honestly regarded the man who opposed 
him as an enemy to virtue and to his country. Conscious 
of the rectitude of his intentions, having at heart the honor 
and interest of the United States, and unable to see two sides 
to any question, he could attribute a difference of opinion 



ANDREW JACKSON. 339 

only to moral obliquity, mental incapacity, ambition, or 
spite. 

"The reader must allow for this, must try and forgive it • 
must take mto consideration the peculiar race whence this 
man sprung; his singular career hitherto, and the frightful 
adulation of which he was the ceaseless victim. There are 
millions of men now living who are as little able to tolerate 
an opinion different from their own, as little able to bear 
censure, as General Jackson ever was. But many of us 
conceal this weakness of ours both from ourselves and from 
others. _ We do not fly into a passion when censured, and 
indite vituperative letters, because there are certain artificial 
restraints to which we are subject, but which were not 
known to this frontier General. Nor have many of us to 
endure the calamity of being the pride and favorite of a 
nation, surrounded by flatterers, cheered by crowds pre- 
sented with swords by legislatures, with medals by' Con- 
gress, with silverware by ladies; sought by politicians, 
counseled with by Presidents and deferred to by Cabinets 
Yet how many of us find it easy to respect the understand- 
mg that differs from us, or the motives that condemn us?" 

This is an insidious libel— a libel in the strict legal sense, 
for which Parton would have been liable in damages to 
General Jackson's relatives. To say of a man who had 
been President of the United States, elected and re-elected, 
and whose name and influence made two other men Presi- 
dent, and whose public life in its devotion to the principles 
on which the Government is founded had made him the 
very corner-stone of a great national party, "that he hon- 
estly regarded any man who opposed him as an enemy to 
virtue and to his country," is a libel, and to say he was hon- 
est in it was only a mean way of denying it. 

Scattered all through the book are these libels as a means 
of degrading him by the vile and libelous charge of extreme 
ignorance— "so ignorant," as he says in another place, "that 
of all human beings he was the least fit to be President of 
the United States." 



390 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

Then what is to be thought of him who writes the biogra- 
phy of a man more beloved for his deeds of heroism and 
exalted integrity and manly virtues than perhaps any other 
American, who can say "he was unable to see two sides of 
any question, he could- attribute a difference of opinion only 
to moral obliquity, mental incapacity, ambition, or spite." 

Nothing could more conclusively show the malicious pur- 
pose of beclouding the name of him whose biography the 
author was writing than the facts as a pretext for this one 
of the many literary diabolisms that run through the book. 

The facts are these: One Major Long, an engineer, was 
dispatched by General Jackson, then a major general, to 
make a topographical survey of a part of the Mississippi 
River, a service admitted to be within the jurisdiction of 
the major general of the Southern division. 

While General Jackson was awaiting a report, he saw in 
the newspapers that Major Long, under an order of the 
Secretary of War, was surveying the New York Harbor, 
and his report made to the Secretary of War was published 
in the newspapers without being transmitted through the 
General who had ordered the survey. 

Jackson thereupon wrote the President, remonstrating 
against this irregularity. 

Waiting forty-nine days and getting no answer — much 
more than the time needed for getting a reply — Jackson 
being then at Nashville, he, through his Adjutant General, 
issued the following order: 

"Division Order, Adjutant General's Office, 
"Headquarters Division of the South, 
"Nashville, April 22, 181 7. 
"The Commanding General considers it due to the prin- 
ciples of subordination which ought and must exist in an 
army, to prohibit the obedience of any order emanating 
from the Department of War to officers of this division 
who have been reported and assigned to duty, unless coming 



ANDREW JACKSON. 391 

through him as the proper organ of communication. The 
object of this order is to prevent the recurrence of a circum- 
stance which removed an important officer from the divis- 
ion without the knowledge of the Commanding General, 
and, indeed, when he supposed that officer engaged in his 
official duties, and anticipated hourly the receipt of his 
official reports on a subject of grave importance to his com- 
mand ; also to prevent the topographical reports from being 
made public through the medium of the newspapers, as was 
done in the case alluded to, thereby enabling the army to 
obtain the benefit of our topographical researches as soon 
as the General Commanding, who is responsible for the 
division. 

"Superior officers having commands assigned them are 
held responsible to the Government for the character and 
conduct of that command, and it might as well be justified 
in an officer senior in command to give orders to a guard on 
duty, without passing that order through the officer of that 
guard, as that the Department of War should countermand 
the arrangements of commanding generals without giving 
their orders through the proper channel. 

"To acquiesce in such a course would be a tame surrender 
of military rights and etiquette, and at once subvert the 
established principles of subordination and good order. 
Obedience to the lawful commands of superior officers is 
constitutionally and morally required; but there is a chain 
of communication that binds the military compact which, if 
broken, opens the door to disobedience and disrespect and 
gives loose to the turbulent spirits who are ever ready to 
excite a mutiny. All physicians able to perform duty who 
are absent on furlough will forthwith repair to their respec- 
tive posts. Commanding officers of regiments and corps 
are ordered to report specially all officers absent from duty 
on the 30th of June next, and their cause of absence. 

"The army is too small to tolerate idlers, and they will 
be dismissed from the service. 
"By order of 

"Major General Jackson, 

"Robert Butler, Adjutant General/' 



392 LIFE AND TIMES OF 



CHAPTER XXXII. 

CONTINUATION OF THE AFFAIR WITH GENERAL SCOTT 

JACKSON NOTIFIES SCOTT THAT HE IS READY TO RECEIVE 
ANY COMMUNICATION SENT. 

A CLEAR statement o£ the facts, in addition to what 
was said in the last chapter explanatory of Parton's 
vituperation of Jackson in defense of General Scott, 
in the controversy growing out of General Jackson's order 
already published in Chapter XXXI, seems to be necessary 
here ; for, mdeed, Jackson in all his after life was wantonly 
assailed by his enemies about it, especially by army officers, 
who never found out that his military genius and unex- 
ampled victories over the country's enemies at all justified 
the making a major general out of a backwoodsman. A 
fair and full statement of the basis on which Parton rests 
his attack on Jackson and his defense of General Scott will 
do two things : It will serve to show the animus with which 
he wrote the "Life of General Jackson," and will put in an 
enduring form a complete answer to long continued assail- 
ments of the great soldier's character, made with no con- 
cern about true history, so it answers a purpose. 

As shown in the last preceding chapter, an order from 
the President of the United States removed an engineer 
under General Jackson from the work to which he was 
assigned, without the order passing through the hands of 
his superior officer. Against this irregularity General Jack- 
son remonstrated in a letter directly to the President. 
Waiting much longer than it required to get a reply, and 
hearing nothing, the General issued a general order, pub- 
lished in the last preceding chapter, which attracted great 



ANDREW JACKSON. 393 

attention, as it in terms forbade subordinates under him 
obeying orders which did not pass through his hands. This 
order was neither approved nor disapproved, but remained 
without notice until in August the President made an order 
on General Ripley, an officer under General Jackson. Gen- 
eral Jackson promptly ordered General Ripley to disobey 
the order from the President, which he did, and at once 
assumed the responsibility of this disobedience, and wrote 
the President on the 12th of August, commending the dis- 
obedience of General Ripley and justifying his own conduct 
He said to the President: 

"In the view I took on this subject on the 4th of March, 
I had flattered myself you would coincide, and had hoped to 
receive your answer before a recurrence of a similar infring- 
ment of military rule rendered it necessary for me to call 
your attention thereto. None are infallible in their opin- 
ions, but it is nevertheless necessary that all should act 
agreeably to their convictions of right. My convictions in 
favor of the course I have pursued are strong, and, should it 
become necessary, I will willingly meet a fair investigation 
before a military tribunal. The good of the service and 
the dignity of the commission I hold, alone actuate me. 
My wishes for retirement have already been known to you, 
but, under existing circumstances, my duty to the officers 
of my division forbids it until this subject is fairly under- 
stood." 

Shortly after the retirement of the Secretary of War, 
Mr. Calhoun taking his place, the sharp issue was brought 
to a head by the new Secretary of War, Mr. Calhoun, 
making the following order : 

"On ordinary occasions orders from that department 
would issue only to the commanding generals of the divis- 
ions, and in cases where the service required a different 
course the general-in-chief would be notified of the order 
with as little delay as possible." 



394 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

In addition, Mr. Calhoun wrote General Jackson a pri- 
vate letter, fully commending his course. This letter was 
the foundation of a close, warm friendship between General 
Jackson and Mr. Calhoun until the rupture, in 1831, which 
led to breaking up the cabinet. The immediate cause of the 
rupture with General Scott came about as follows: 

On the 3d of September, 181 7, General Jackson received 
an anonymous letter, dated August 14, 181 7, as follows: 

"Your late order has been the subject of much private, 
and some public remark. The war office gentry and their 
adherents, pensioners and expectants, have all been busy, 
but no one (of sufficient mark for your notice) more than 
Major General Scott, who, I am creditably informed, goes 
so far as to call the order in question an act of mutiny. In 
this district he is the organ of government insinuations and 
the supposed author of the paper enclosed, which, however 
(the better to cover him), was not published until he had 
left this city for the lakes. Be on your guard. As they 
have placed spies upon Brown here, so it is probable that 
you are not without them. The Eastern Federalists have 
now all become good Republicans, and pledged to the sup- 
port of the President, as he to them. Government can now 
do well without the aid of Tennessee, etc. *A word to the 
wise is enough.' " 

There was enclosed in this letter an offensive article from 
the New York Columbian, asserting that the celebrated 
order of the 226. of April was an insult to the Government. 

At this time General Jackson had no personal acquaint- 
ance with, and had never seen General Scott, but at once 
wrote him the following note : 

"Headquarters Division of the South, 

Nashville, September 8, 181 7. 
''Sir: With that candor due the character you have sus- 
tained as a soldier and a man of honor, and with the frank- 
ness of the latter, I address you : 



ANDREW JACKSON. 395 

"Enclosed is a copy of an anonymous letter, postmarked 
'New York, 14th August, 181 7,' together with a publica- 
tion taken from the Columbian, which accompanied the 
letter. I have not permitted myself for a moment to believe 
that the conduct ascribed to you is correct. Candor, how- 
ever, induces me to lay them before you, that you may have 
it in your power to say how far they be correctly stated. If 
my order has been the subject of your animadversion, it is 
believed you will at once admit it and the extent to which 
you may have gone. 

"I am, sir, respectfully, your most obedient servant, 

"Andrew Jackson. 

"Gen. W. Scott, U. S. Army." 

General Scott answered this letter, and said he had 
expressed the opinion, and still held the opinion, that the 
order in question was of a mutinous tendency. "Convers- 
ing," said General Scott, "with some two or three private 
gentlemen, about as many times, on the subject of the divis- 
ion order, dated at Nashville, April 22, 181 7, it is true that 
I gave it as my opinion that the paper was, as it respected 
the future, mutinous in its character and tendency, and, as 
it respected the past, a reprimand of the Commander-in- 
C^hief , the President of the United States ; for although the 
latter be not expressly named, it is a principle well under- 
stood that the War Department, without at least his sup- 
posed sanction, could never give a valid command to an 
ensign." 

He further said, continuing his letter, the whole being 
bombastic and full of advice to General Jackson, his super- 
ior officer: "I have nothing to fear or hope from either 
party. It is not likely that the Executive will be offended 
at the opinion that it has committed an irregularity in the 
transmissions of one of its orders; and as to yourself, 
although I cheerfully admit that you are my superior, I 
deny that you are my commanding officer, within the mean- 
ing of the sixth article of the Rules and Articles of War. 



396 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

Even if I had belonged to your division, I should not hesi- 
tate to repeat to you all that I have said, at any time, on 
your subject, if a proper occasion offered. And what is 
more, I should expect your approbation, as, in my humble 
judgment, refutation is impossible." 

To this letter General Jackson made a lengthy reply. It 
was this letter, as well as the general order, that drew forth 
the severe castigation of Parton, the biographer, who says : 
"To this moderate, proper, and gentlemanly letter of 
General Scott, General Jackson sent a reply of so incredi- 
ble a character that when it was paraded in the campaign of 
1824 many pronounced it a forgery, a weak invention of 
the enemy to influence votes. But no, it was really written 
and dispatched by General Jackson, and what is more, he 
thought so well of the performance as to furnish a copy for 
publication, and that, too, at a time when no one called for 
it and few knew of its existence." 

Parton continues : "There is no justifying General Jack- 
son's conduct to General Scott in this correspondence; it 
was ridiculous. It exhibits the worst weakness of his char- 
acter in a striking light." 

Before reading this letter of General Jackson's, let it be 
remembered, not as Parton puts it, that he could not, on 
account of mental obliquity, see two sides of a question; 
he could only attribute a difference of opinion to mental 
incapacity, ambition or spite, but on the contrary, let it be 
remembered that General Jackson in the anonymous letter, 
and in the admission of General Scott, had the proof that 
he — General Scott — speaking of a superior officer, as he 
admits General Jackson to be, he being a brevet major 
general, not only used offensive and approbrious language 
about him, but was, in open, blatant conversation, accusing 
his superior officer of mutiny, and at the head of an army 
clique had set spies on General Brown, the other major gen- 
eral, and had the information that General Scott, at the 



ANDREW JACKSON. 397 

head of this clique, was guilty of insubordination of the 
most grievous character, stirring up the "war office gentry 
and their adherents, pensioners and expectants," to a busy 
attack on him. 

Let it be further understood that General Jackson well 
knew that in the estimation of this crowd of war-office gen- 
try his appointment of Major General was a never-ending 
offense, and that his great service in saving the country 
from deep humiliation was an aggravation of the offense 
of being Major General, rather than a virtue. 

Under the existing facts the letter was thoroughly Jack- 
sonian, and I here give parts of it as follows : 

"Headquarters Division of the South, 
"Nashville, December 3, 1817. 

"Sir: I have been absent from this place for a consider- 
able time, rendering the last friendly office I could to a par- 
ticular friend, whose eyes I closed on the 20th ultimo. 
Owing to this your letter of the 14th of October was not 
received until the ist instant. 

"Upon receipt of the anonymous letter mailed from New 
York I hastened to lay it before you. That course was 
suggested to me by the respect I had for you as a man and a 
soldier, and that you might have it in your power to answer 
how far you had been guilty of so base and inexcusable 
conduct. Independent of the services you have rendered 
your country, the circumstances of you wearing the badge 
and insignia of a soldier led me to the conclusion that I was 
addressing a gentleman. With these feelings you were 
written to ; and had an idea been for a moment entertained 
that you could have descended from the high and dignified 
character of a Major General of the United States, and 
used language so approbrious and insolent as you have 
done, rest assured I should have viewed you as rather too 
contemptible to have held any converse with you on the 
subject. If you have lived in the world thus long in entire 
ignorance of the obligations and duties which honor im- 
pose, you are indeed past the time of learning, and surely 



398 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

he must be ignorant who seems so Httle under their influ- 
ence. 

"Pray, sir, does your recollection serve in what school 
of philosophy you were taught, that, to a letter inquiring 
into the nature of a supposed injury, and clothed in lan- 
guage decorous and unquestionable, an answer should be 
given couched in insolence and bullying expression? I 
had hoped that what was charged upon you by my anony- 
mous correspondent was unfounded. I had hoped so from 
a belief that General Scott was a soldier and a gentleman. 
But when I see those statements doubly confirmed by his 
own words, it becomes a matter of inquiry, how far a man 
of honorable feelings can reconcile them to himself, or 
longer set up a claim to that character. 

"In terms, polite as I was capable of writing, I asked 
you if my informant had stated truly? If you were the 
author of the publication and remarks charged against you, 
and to what extent? A reference to your letter, without 
any comment of mine, will inform how far you have pur- 
sued a similar course ; how little of the gentleman and how 
much of the hectoring bully you have manifested. If noth- 
ing else would, the epaulets which grace your shoulders 
should have dictated to you a different course, and have 
admonished you that, however small may have been your 
lespect for another, respect for yourself should have taught 
you the necessity of replying, at least mildly, to the inquir- 
ies I suggested; and more especially should you have done 
thi^, when your own convictions must have fixed you as 
guilty of the abominable crime of detraction, of slandering, 
and behind his back, a brother officer. But not content 
with answering to what was proposed, your overweening 
vanity has led you to make an offering of your advice. 
Believe me, sir, it is not in my power to render you m)' 
thanks. I think too highly of myself to suppose that I 
stand at all in need of your admonitions, and too lightly of 
you to appreciate them as useful. 

"I shall not stoop, sir, to a justification of my order 
before you, or to notice the weakness and absurdities of 
your tinsel rhetoric. It may be quite conclusive with your- 
self, and I have no disposition to attempt convincing you 
that your ingenuity is not as profound as you have imag- 



ANDREW JACKSON. 399 

ined it. To my Government, whenever ifc may please, I 
hold myself liable to answer, and to produce the reasons 
which prompted me to the course I took; and to the inter- 
meddling pimps and spies of the War Department, who are 
in the garb of gentlemen, I hold myself responsible for any 
grievance they may labor under on my account, with which 
you have my permission to number yourself. For what I 
have said I offer no apology. You have deserved it all and 
more, were it necessary to say more. I will barely remark, 
in conclusion, that if you feel yourself aggrieved at what is 
here said, any communication from you will reach me safely 
at this place. 

"I have the honor to be, very respectfully, your obedient 
servant, Andrew Jackson. 

''Brevet Major General W. Scott, U. S. A., New York." 

This chapter in American history is made the occasion 
by Parton of repeating over and over the justice and fair- 
ness of General Scott's conduct, and General Jackson is 
held up to the readers of the only biography ever written 
with defamation as a leading purpose. In the face of these 
facts, Parton says General Scott's reply to General Jack- 
son's first letter asking for information as to the anonymous 
letter was "everything it should have been. It was candid, 
courteous, explicit." And he introduces his chapter of 
censure by heading it: 

"■hostile correspondence with gen. WINFIELD SCOTT." 

And opens it by an incidental reference to a correspond- 
ence with President Monroe by saying: "General Jackson 
had scarcely dispatched the last of his lofty dispassionate 
epistles to Mr. Monroe before he was involved in a corre- 
spondence that was neither lofty nor dispassionate. It was 
as though he had said to himself, "These fine letters that I 
have been writing may lead these Washington gentlemen 
into the opinion that I am a mild philosopher in epaulets. 
I must now do something to correct that absurd impression, 



400 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

or, it was as though looking into the future, he had been 
seized with sudden compassion for the readers of his biog- 
raphy, and said : 

"After the Monroe correspondence they shall have some- 
thing more spirited and Jacksonian." 

I have taken some pains to put in shape and make easy 
of comprehension the entire affair with General Scott, and 
also to extract from Parton some portions of his diatribe 
against General Jackson, and for two purposes — to show 
the evil-mindedness of Parton in writing a life of Jackson, 
one object of which was to befoul and defame the character 
of a man long since dead; and the other, to give by one 
single illustration, elements in the great man's make-up 
which truly show his real character. 

In all the researches I have made, nothing strikes me 
with more force in the one great purpose I have of giving 
to the world the true character of a man whose glorious 
triumphs in both civil and military life will, I trust, outlive 
the defamation of his evil-minded biographer. No language 
suited to go in a book, can be used here to properly charac- 
terize one, deeply prejudiced against a man who has per- 
formed public service, who constitutes himself a biographer 
of such public servant, after his death, for the double pur- 
pose of making money, and at the same time of inflicting a 
lasting injury on his reputation. It is probable that no 
other American writer of sufficient ability to attract atten- 
tion could have been found with such debased literary pro- 
pensities. 

The defiant recklessness of Parton to defame Jackson Is 
absolutely without the semblance of an excuse. The vile 
attack on Jackson about the general order made by him 
that his subordinates should obey no order that did not pass 
through his department, was so eminently and notoriously 
sound that, the veriest tyro in the army, having his attention 
called to it, would approve it, and it was the making of this 
order that became a license for General Scott to put himself 



ANDREW JACKSON. 401 

at the head of the "war office gentry and their adherents, 
pensioners and expectants" — to pour out a flood of abuse 
on the man from the backwoods who had dared accept a 
commission of major general, ranking the men who had 
long worn uniform and had cereificates that they had read 
books on military service. 

And Parton wrote this libel with a full knowledge that 
Mr, Calhoun, as Secretary of War, of course with the 
approval of the President, had sustained General Jackson 
by making a general order in the War Department fully 
approving the principle of Jackson's general order, and with 
a full knowledge that Mr. Calhoun was so impressed with 
General Jackson's noble courage in making the order that 
he was not content with an official act approving it, but 
emphasized his appreciation of it by writing a private letter 
— a letter of commendation for his courage in the discharge 
of duty. 

He also knew that, while the President had shown his 
confidence in General Jackson by inviting his counsel in the 
most delicate matters the Government had to deal with, this 
confidence and esteem were greatly enhanced by Jackson's 
fearless discharge of duty in this affair, and that ever after 
General Jackson was the one man he could rely on in any 
department of the Government, civil or military, that when, 
soon after, he wanted the Seminole murderers in the 
swamps of Florida suppressed, he sent General Jackson to 
do it. And when he wanted a Governor for Florida after 
the purchase, there was none so fitted for it as Jackson; 
and when the Administration was divided on Jackson's 
policy in the execution of Arbuthnot and Ambrister, the 
President was his fast friend. 

But the letter of the 3d of September, 181 7, in reply to 
General Scott's letter of October 4th, opens the door for 
Mr. Parton's liveliest exploits in defaming the man whose 
biography he was writing, with malice aforethought. 



402 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

The life of Jackson would not be complete without this 
letter. It is thoroughly Jacksonian, as much so as disobey- 
ing the order of the Secretary of War and bringing his 
army back to Tennessee from Natchez ; as much so as dis- 
obeying the order of the Governor to return to Tennessee 
from the Creek Nation to defend the frontiers ; as much so 
as taking all the responsibility on himself, when the Gov- 
ernment refused to give him orders to go into friendly 
territory and depose the Spanish Governor and destroy the 
forts occupied by the British; as much so as fighting the 
battles of New Orleans; as much so as imprisoning Hall. 
These were all Jacksonian, but not more so than this letter. 
No other general could probably have written the letter. 
In fact, no other man approaches him in the daring with 
which he did things, and no other man approaches him in 
his successes. It is this that is turning the public mind to a 
"Jacksonian period," as distinguished from the public 
service of all other men. The intimation of Parton that 
this letter was written because "he regarded every man who 
opposed him as an enemy to virtue and his country," is vile 
and malicious defamation. 

Jackson knew men — he could weigh and measure men 
as no other man could. The proof he had that General 
Scott was at the head of the war-office gentry — who were 
busy in assailing him — and charging that his conduct was 
mutinous, and this on the streets and in public, while they 
were both officers in the United States Army, and Jackson 
his superior ; and when, if he succeeded in his purpose, he, 
Scott, would probably be on the court-martial to try him, 
some officers might have passed over, but not Jackson. 
With him the order was absolutely right, and General Scott 
knew it when he was preaching mutiny to the populace, 
and he knew it was to inflame the public and to move up 
the war-office gentry and to get clear of a backwoods major 
general. 



ANDREW JACKSON. 403 

He knew all this when he wrote the letter, and, as he 
says, General Scott deserved it all and more. 

There is something peculiarly grievous to the friends and 
admirers of a man who did as much for his country as 
Jackson did, in finding that a biographer all through the 
book had scattered the seeds of a poison that has more or 
less inoculated the reading people in all countries — inocu- 
lated superficial readers, men in high places, until such a 
man as Bishop Potter, in a sermon, berated the Democratic 
party for its descent from "Jeffersonian simplicity to Jack- 
sonian vulgarity." And actually supposed he was saying a 
thing that had some truth in it. This was a distinguished 
bishop, who was simply trying his hand on a euphonious 
expression which he thought Parton's book authorized. 



404 LIFE AND TIMES OF 



CHAPTER XXXIII. 

Jackson's critics in ignorance of his real character 
— BISHOP potter's famed '^'jeffersonian simplicity 

TO JACKSONIAN vulgarity" OTHER DISTINGUISHED 

writers JACKSON WROTE HIS OWN STATE PAPERS 

PROVED. 

MORE than at any time since I commenced the 
investigation of the life and character of Andrew 
Jackson, do I reahze the need of a true and truth- 
ful book which may, to some extent, counteract the influence 
of Parton's "Life." This book has not only given men like 
Bishop Potter, whose domain is among the spirits and with 
whom the euphony of speech, with the grace of manner, is 
the highest excellence, an opportunity for a contemptuous 
utterance about the man who saved the country from deep- 
est humiliation ; but the book is the text which biographers, 
like Schurz in his "Life of Clay," and Lodge in his "Life 
of Webster," use in defaming the great Southern soldier 
and statesman. 

If Bishop Potter had desired to delineate character, true 
character, of men who had reached high places, instead of 
a display of rhetoric, he should have looked beyond Parton, 
whose utterances are discredited by the prejudice shown all 
through the book. If he had, he would have found a man 
whose lifetime friends say he never told a vulgar anecdote : 
whose words, though sometimes severe, were always chaste; 
a man with a warm and generous heart, who loved little 
children and hated hypocrites ; a man of devout and humble 
spirit, who in his inner nature was a much more sincere 



ANDREW JACKSON. 405 

worshiper at the feet of the Master than careless critics 
admit, and who through his whole Hfe, in his admirable 
letters to dear friends, almost invariably closed them with a 
prayer and a reliance on our "merciful Heavenly Father." 
He would have found a man who not only with his strong 
right arm in the presence of his enemies ran the flag of his 
country higher than any other man before or since, but as 
defender of the helpless and with but one earthly idol — 
woman — was supreme among men ; and then the gifted 
Bishop might have gone farther and found that the man 
who knew him best — Judge McNairy — who brought 
him to Tennessee, who roomed with him at Salisbury, North 
Carolina, and roomed with him at Nashville, and who trav- 
eled with him from court to court, one judge and the other 
attorney general, said of him, that with women he was the 
most exemplary man he had ever known. One thing is 
true, that if he had stopped to think for one moment he 
would have known that such a husband as Jackson was, 
with such a wife as he had, could never be a vulgar man. 

The rhetorical slang of Bishop Potter, as shown in the 
next preceding chapter, "From Jeffersonian simplicity to 
Jacksonian vulgarity," was doubtless nothing more than a 
pulpit blast at Democracy as he sees it — a gilded expression 
at the secrifice of truth. 

The other two writers, Mr. Schurz and Mr. Lodge, can- 
not be let off so lightly. For these two biographers, famil- 
iar as they were with well-established facts, the testimony 
of witnesses who have lived in their time, and the public 
records with which they are both familiar, to accept Parton's 
splenetic diatribes about Jackson's ignorance and unfitness 
for places of public trust, and become the retailers of his 
defamation, can only be accounted for on one of two theo- 
ries — a ready acceptance without investigation of a suspi- 
cious author's sayings, or a willingness to perpetuate the 
sectional unkindness so long felt in New England, especially 



406 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

among the war-office gentry, against Jackson for being a 
Major General in the United States Army. 

In following Parton, and assuming that General Jackson 
was ignorant, perverse and impracticable, certain implica- 
tions must be carried along, utterly inconsistent with another 
trait conceded by both friend and foe — that he was self- 
willed in a high degree, and his enemies say absolutely 
uncontrollable. 

In the first place, to degrade this great soldier and refuse 
him the conspicuous place in history to which his services 
entitle him, is unjust, because it must be assumed that in a 
life of long continued public service as a soldier, ever busy 
in making orders to be read to his army and in reports to 
his Government, and in contentions with men at the head, 
giving out over his signature official and semi-official docu- 
ments, he did more writing than any general the country 
has had. Indeed, it is probable no general in any country 
in the same time was so frequently before the public in an 
official way as he. By his voluminous writings let him be 
tried like other men. 

As a civilian, holding places of public trust, in making a 
State government, and in administering the government 
whose honor he had upheld as no other man had, he was for 
eight years a voluminous writer. His state papers are 
exhaustive and embrace a discussion of all the great ques- 
tions that agitated the public mind through a period when 
great questions were being handled by intellectual giants, 
and the notable fact is that whatever his enemies say about 
him through all that period known as the "Jacksonian 
period," no one of them ever claimed that he was a weak 
man. On the contrary, he was the head and front, the body 
and the brains, and the acknowledged leader in and orig- 
inator of issues which brought to the front against him these 
forces combined, whose talent as orators, constitutional 
lawyers and statesmen, enabled them to mark the pages of 



ANDREW JACKSON. 407 

history as never before or since, and through it all this com- 
bined talent was fighting one man — Andrew Jackson. The 
judgment has long since been entered in his favor in the 
great issues of that "J^^ksonian period" in the public mind. 

The issues made by Parton, and accepted by writers who 
have the confidence and respect of the public like Schurz 
and Lodge, is that this man was ignorant — extremely 
ignorant — and did not write or dictate the official papers 
to which his name is signed, and which have attracted 
world-wide attention. Now, I submit if this is fair — deal- 
ing with the reputation of one who did so much for his 
country and displayed such power when living. 

The proof that his state papers were written by others is 
found in the suggestive negative, several times repeated by 
Parton, that VanBuren and Livingston never admitted that 
they wrote his state papers. The innuendo of this libel is 
that in declining to acknowledge it, they admitted it. A 
more insidious and malicious stab at character has not been 
made. That Jackson wrote or dictated all his great papers, 
with a sentence now and then polished by a friend whose 
touch was more graceful, is proved by Colonel Benton, who 
had better advantages to know, both in the army and in the 
Cabinet, than any other contemporary. 

Colonel Benton was an officer under him in the army, 
served with him in the United States Senate, and was in 
the Senate, and Jackson's closest and most confidential friend 
during the entire eight years when he was President. 

There are three papers that are not left in doubt as to the 
authorship, and they are among the ablest papers to which 
General Jackson's signature is attached. One is a celebrated 
paper which Jackson prepared to read to his Cabinet on 
removing the deposits from the United States Bank. This 
paper was the subject of a distinguished controversy in the 
United States Senate, by which Mr. Clay, Mr. Calhoun, and 
Mr. Webster sought to impeach General Jackson; it was 



408 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

the memorandum prepared by General Jackson for his 
Cabinet, giving his view of the law and his reasons for 
removing the deposits from the Bank of the United States. 
Mr. Clay offered a resolution in the Senate to have General 
Jackson furnish a copy of this paper. Jackson's reply over- 
whelmed the Senate, in which he showed that the Senate 
had nothing to do with the paper — that it was his memo- 
randum, prepared by him, given to the Cabinet, why and 
upon what ground he proposed to remove the deposits, and 
Mr. Clay came nearer making himself ridiculous by offering 
this resolution than perhaps by anything he did in his whole 
life. I now refer to this paper alone for the purpose of 
meeting the charge that General Jackson did not write his 
state papers, and that he was incompetent to write. This 
paper will be published in full when I reach that point in 
the history of that bank question, and it is generally con- 
ceded to be equal, if not superior, to the great state papers 
to which General Jackson's name is attached. 

I say it is generally conceded ; the truth is, General Jack- 
son treated it in the controversy that came in Congress 
about it as a mere memorandum written by him for his 
Cabinet, and this is what put Mr. Clay in the predicament 
he was, for this was manifestly true as Jackson put it — it 
was a memorandum which he wrote to be used in what he 
had to say to his Cabinet about the question he had to deal 
with, and the whole history of it, and Jackson's treatment 
of it, and his triumphant victory over Mr. Clay, and because 
it was his own memorandum, which impress it as his paper, 
and not the paper of a member of his Cabinet, nor his 
Secretary. 

There is another paper which comes aptly, and conclu- 
sively settles that General Jackson was capable of writing 
whatever he wanted to write, and in a style not inferior to 
the best. I refer now to his South Carolina Proclamation. 
This celebrated paper was written by himself, as is shown 



ANDREW JACKSON. 409 

by both Mr. Benton and William B. Lewis. They both 
testified that they were present, and saw him when he was 
writing this paper and throwing off the leaves so rapidly 
that they were scattered over the table that they might dry 
before put up. This celebrated paper, according to the 
testimony of Mr. William B. Lewis, as well as Mr. Benton, 
was submitted to the Secretary of State, Mr. Livingston, 
who took it and made corrections in it, and when it was 
brought back to General Jackson, the General positively 
refused to submit to any corrections being made in the 
paper. It was his paper, he said, and it must go as he had 
written it. These two papers are among the very best of 
all his papers, and they furnish sufficient evidence of his 
power and capacity to write — or, rather, evidence is fur- 
nished that they were both written by Jackson himself. 
These two papers, with the paper that he wrote to the 
Governor of the State of Tennessee when he was out in the 
wilderness, and which has already been published in this 
book, taken together, if they are his papers, settle forever 
his ability to write his state papers ; and that the attempt to 
destroy him by his enemies and to show him incapable of 
writing anything is groundless. 

It may not be improper to emphasize what has heretofore 
been said, that in the opinion of the author the letter to the 
Governor written in the wilderness had more to do with 
making history and removing a cloud that was on the people 
of this country than any one paper that is to be found in 
our history ; in other words, this paper made a new map — 
a map altogether different from what would have been made 
in our political history if it had not been written. 

In addition, such a voluminous writer was he that in all 
parts of the country, preserved and kept as relics by the 
descendants of public men and close personal friends, may 
be found in his letters — all in the same bold, strong, Jack- 
son hand, a handwriting no more to be mistaken than his 
picture. *26 



410 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

These letters cover and include a discussion of all the 
public questions of the day, and, as well, business matters, 
the ties and obligations of friendship, the education of 
training children, the sorrows and afflictions that come to 
the home, letters written to public men, to private citizens, 
to women and children. General Jackson was not a schol- 
arly man. When or how he acquired a reasonably good 
education no one seems to know. 

The facts about his boyhood life which are known are, 
that he was born after his father died ; his mother died in a 
hospital nursing sick soldiers when he was a mere boy; an 
older brother was killed in battle, and he and a brother older 
than he were put in jail by the British. Both took the small- 
pox. The brother died, while he lingered for many weeks,^ 
so that what education he got when young was picked up. 
I am sure if such men as Schurz and Lodge, freed from 
prejudice, had looked beyond Parton and found that with 
his rise from obscurity to the exalted place he reached he 
had cultivated his mind and gathered information until 
wisdom in its broadest sense controlled every act of his life, 
the untruthful criticism would have found no place in their 
writings. Indeed, it seems to me that, discarding all sec- 
tional prejudice and all jealousy between the victory of 
science and the victory of battle, they, even they, both having 
reached great distinction by advantages in early life which 
but few men have had, might have palliated the mistakes 
of a man whose birth was a tragedy, and that such a tragedy 
in childhood might have touched a tender chord in the heart 
of a German philosopher or a New England statesman. 

But going further, and seeing that this fatherless boy,, 
when his country was in direst straits, its armies beaten on 
every field by the trained soldiers of the most warlike people 
in the world, and with the whole press of England denounc- 
ing us as cowards ready to declare war, but too cowardly 
to fight, drew his sword, called his neighbors together, they 



ANDREW JACKSON. 411 

from the backwoods, bringing their squirrel guns, and gave 
the word of command, "Follow me," and sent the leaders 
of the invading hosts back home in coffins, sending what 
was left of the army back with orders never to cross the 
Atlantic Ocean again with guns in their hands, which order 
they have respected, it seems to me that men like Schurz 
and Lodge might have had a kind word to say about the 
Irish boy, even if he did misspell words. They might have 
had a pleasant word about a man who did so much without 
education. They might at least have said. What would he 
have done if he had had friends to educate him? They 
might have expressed gratitude for the punishment he 
inflicted on an enemy who had shown such heartless cruelty 
in their victories over the armies of the North. They might 
have thanked him for bringing back the flag the British 
took away from the Capitol. 

There is another view that Bishop Potter, Mr. Schurz, 
and Mr. Lodge might have taken. There is no dispute 
about the accomplishments of General Jackson in social life. 
It was not only the French lady of high rank who 
approached the backwoods President at the White House 
with trepedition, and left it in ecstacies at meeting the most 
courtly man she had ever seen. It was not only the accom- 
plished Mrs. Livingston who said to lady friends when her 
husband sent her word that General Jackson, who had just 
arrived in the city, would take dinner, "What in the world 
shall we do with that backwoods general?" and when he 
left said to them he was certainly the most graceful and 
agreeable man she had ever seen. But of all the public 
men Tennessee ever gave to the public service, Andrew 
Jackson was at all times and everywhere recognized as the 
most graceful man in society. Can such a man be dethroned, 
after having fought his way to the top, by careless or 
unfriendly writers? Can such a man be very ignorant? 
There is another view that might have been taken. Not- 



412 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

withstanding Parton's libelous book, Jackson is one of three 
men whose fame grows apace with time. Washington, 
Jackson, and Lincoln are probably the only names that will 
go down through the ages growing as they go. More 
localities have been named for Jackson than any man born 
in America, except Washington. 

The map of the United States shows the popularity of our 
public men among the masses, more satisfactorily, perhaps, 
than by any other means. 

The name of Washington appears on localities 198 times. 
The name of Jackson appears 191 times, besides about forty 
places in the United States named "Hickory." Franklin 
has 136, Jefferson no, Monroe 91, Madison 76, Adams 64, 
Clay 42, Lafayette 34, Calhoun 16, and Webster 14. This 
is the great popular favorite that Mr. Parton and men who 
carelessly follow him are writing down by saying he cannot 
spell. 

When this work is completed, I shall feel it to be neces- 
sary, in vindication of General Jackson's reputation, to have 
lithographed and put into the book several of his letters, so 
that people who read may determine for themselves whether 
Jackson was the ignorant man that Parton makes him. 

I have before me now an interesting original letter of 
about five hundred words, written to a special friend, and I 
make this quotation from it : 

"If I knew where to address William Crawford, I would 
write him on the subject of Griffin's debt, and that of his 
own. Half the debt being relinquished, William ought to 
pay the balance. I am happy to find you have determined 
to call the attention of the teacher of Andrew to the subject 
'of his writing. Our modern mode of teaching is all wrong. 
^Formerly the child was taught to spell and read well ; then 
-was taught arithmetic and to write well. These points 
gained, the grammar and geography might be commenced 



ANDREW JACKSON. 413 

with advantage, and not before. Writing is mechanical, 
and, unless attended to when young, never can be obtained 
afterward; therefore, as it is, few of our modern scholars 
write good hands. 

"In addition, whilst the child is learning the art of writing 
well and arithmetic, his mind is expanding and preparing 
for the sciences and languages. I beg you, therefore, to 
say to the teacher to make him spend every day at least one 
hour in writing. I shall write Andrew soon." 

This entire letter of five hundred words has two misspelled 
words in it; the punctuation is remarkably good for the 
time, and for a man like Jackson, that had scarcely any 
advantage of education. I have in my possession nearly 
one hundred of his original letters, and, take him all in all, 
he is in every respect the most satisfactory and interesting 
letter-writer of all our public men, so far as I have had any 
observation. 

As has often been said in these papers, he was a volumi- 
nous writer. He evidently wrote rapidly. The letters are 
plain and distinct, and for the purpose of meeting just what 
was said about his ignorance, I have examined his original 
letters from the time he came to Tennessee, or at least one 
year afterward, 1789, down to the year of his death, and 
there is one most interesting feature connected with his 
chirography. 

His want of education is manifest in his early letters. 
The strong mind, the capacity to think, is found in his let- 
ters of an earlier date, but he manifestly lacked words, and 
was in other respects greatly deficient in writing. His 
letters from that time to the time of his death show a con- 
tinual growth, and he reached a point where his thoughts 
ran ahead of his pen, though he was a rapid writer, and 
there was no lack of words to express his language. 

More clubs, political and social, commemorate Jackson's 



414 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

services by taking his name than commemorate all the others 
combined. Not a year passes that Jackson clubs are not 
formed, and it looks as if every city in the Union will have 
a Jackson club. More than Jefferson or any other man, he 
is the founder of the living principles of one of the great 
parties. Whether right or wrong, while all other men slept, 
he saw the cloud rising, not bigger than a man's hand — the 
danger of money combines. The fight of his life, one that 
separated him from friends more than all others, was made 
to dissipate and scatter the forces of Federal combines, 
realizing in its incipiency what the entire country now 
accepts as sound, for in condemning trusts as dangerous 
both the great parties recognize his wisdom. 

The publication of General Jackson's correspondence — 
public and private letters — if it were possible, I am sure, 
would produce in the public mind a sensation as strange and 
pleasing as the sunlight that drives away the mist of the 
morning. It has taken several centuries to put England's 
greatest soldier, Cromwell, before the world as he was. 
This need not be with America's greatest soldier. The 
wrongs done him by deeply prejudiced biographers, and 
those who carelessly accept error for truth, are palpable, and 
the proof is at hand and in many forms. 

What the country would like to know about the man who, 
with raw troops, gained a great victory over an army made 
up of Wellington's best soldiers, and then in civil life led 
the way and put on the pages of American history the 
"Jacksonian period," standing out in full view, as immov- 
able as a rock-ribbed island in the sea, is, what was he as a 
man, a citizen, a neighbor, a husband? What of him in 
his private relations ? What of his obligations to his fellow 
men? What of his education, his social life, his religion? 
On these subjects nothing would throw so much light as his 
correspondence. If his letters could be gathered up by 
the thousand, they would be a revelation. 



ANDREW JACKSON. 415 

Here is a characteristic letter, an original letter, now 
before me, written to a young girl, the daughter of his dear 
friend, General Coffee, written when he was President and 
at the time when public affairs were pressing him greatly. 

"Rip Raps, August 15, 1833. 

"My Dear Mary: Having returned to this spot for the 
benefit of my health by sea bathing, and to get free from 
that continued bustle with which I am always surrounded 
in Washington and elsewhere, unless when I shut myself up 
on these rocks. I did not receive your kind and affectionate 
letter until day before yesterday, rehearsing to me the mel- 
ancholy bereavement which you have sustained in the loss 
of your dear father. 

*'I had received this melancholy and distressing intelli- 
gence by sundry letters from his friends who surrounded 
him in his last moments. 

"It is true, my dear Mary, that you have lost an affection- 
ate and tender father, and I a sincere friend. When I shook 
him by the hand in Washington, I did not then think it was 
the last adieu to a dear friend, nor would I have taken the 
trip to the North had I known his disease was approaching 
such a crisis; no, Mary; had I been advised of his peril, I 
should have hatsend to see him once more before he left this 
troublesome world and yielded to him all the comfort in my 
power. But why these reflections? He is gone from us 
and we cannot recall him. We must follow him, for he 
cannot return to us, and it becomes our duty to prepare for 
this event. His example will be an invaluable legacy to his 
family, and his dying admonition a treasure, if adopted, 
beyond all price. True religion is calculated to make us 
happy not only in this, but in the next and better world, and 
therefore it was his regret that he had not joined the church. 
It is a profitable admonition to his family, that they may all 
become members of the church at an early day, for it is in 
religion alone that we can find consolation for such bereave- 
ments as the loss of our dear friend ; it is religion alone that 
ever gives peace to us here and happiness beyond the grave ; 
it is religion alone that can support us in our declining 
years, when our relish is lost for all sublunary enjoyments, 



416 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

and all things are seen in their true light as mere vanity and 
vexation of spirit. Your father's admonition on his dying 
bed to you ought to be cherished by you all and practiced 
upon. 

"My dear Mary, his request for my prayers for his dear 
wife and children will be bestowed with pleasure. They 
will be constantly offered up at the throne of grace for you 
all; and our dear Saviour has spoken it. That he will be 
a father to the fatherless and a husband to the widow.' 
Rely on his promises; they are faithful and true, and he 
will bless you in all your outgoings and incomings and in 
your baskets and in your store. Rely upon and trust in His 
goodness and mercy and prepare your minds, in the lan- 
guage of your dear father, always to be ready to say with 
heartfelt resignation, 'May the Lord's will be done.' 

"If I am spared to next spring, and my health will permit, 
I will visit your dear mother and mingle my tears with hers 
over his silent grave ; till then, my dear Mary, if I can be 
of any service to her and the family in any way, I hope you 
will make it known to me. To your dear mother and all 
the family, tender my blessing for their health and happi- 
ness now and hereafter. 

"Emily and the children, with Andrew and Sarah, are 
with me, all in good health, and all join me in best wishes to 
your mother and the family, and also in a tender of our 
sincere condolence on this very distressing and mournful 
occasion. 

"Major Donelson is in Tennessee; we left him in Wash- 
ington, and he was to set out in two days after we left, and 
we are advised he did so. 

"It will give me much happiness to hear from your 
mother and the family often; do, my dear Mary, write me 
occasionally. Your father, whilst living, knew the deep 
interest I felt in everything that related to his and their 
welfare. He wrote me often, and except from him and 
yourself, I have not received a line from any of our connec- 
tion, except announcing the death of your dear father, for 
twelve months. Do write me occasionally, and believe me 
to be, with the highest esteem, your affectionate uncle, 

"Andrew Jackson. 

"Miss Mary Coffee." 



ANDREW JACKSON. 417 

In an old diary I find a statement made by James M. 
Hamilton, one of Nashville's best citizens, who died some 
years ago, in reference to a visit he made to the Hermitage 
after General Jackson came home at the end of his second 
presidential term. Mr. Hamilton was then a boy in a store 
in Nashville, and was sent out to collect a bill of $3,000, 
which the General's adopted son had made while he was 
President. Mr. Hamilton shows his trepidation and dread 
of meeting the man that had been pictured to him, and to 
collect a debt which he supposed would develop a storm that 
the great fighter always carried about with him. Here is 
what Mr. Hamilton says took place when he showed him 
the bill, but which was after a reception that none but a 
great man could give a timid boy : 

" 'Let me see it, my son' ; and he reached forth his long, 
slender hand. As his eyes rested on item after item, I 
eagerly watched the expression of his countenance. No 
frown of displeasure was there, but simply attention. 
Folding the paper, he slowly said : 'This is a large bill. My 
son Andrew is a good man, but a very extravagant one. 
I see many things here he could have done without. But, 
my son, I will pay this bill on one condition. It is, that 
your employers will correct mistakes, should there be any.' 

"I assured him that they would certainly do so, and he 
requested me to write a check on the Planters' Bank, add- 
ing : 'My son, I came home from Washington with but 75 
cents of my salary left, and had it not been for the kindness 
of my friend, Francis Blair, in lending me money, I would 
not be able to meet these obligations.' 

"I had never written a check and had no form with me, 
but I did the best I could, and he signed it. He then 
requested me to write a receipt. Again I was puzzled, but 
I did the best I could, and he accepted it. 

"I arose to go. He invited me most cordially to remain 
to dinner. I was too much delighted, too happy, too much 



418 LIFE AND TIMES OF 

relieved, to think of such a thing. I longed to get back to 
the store and show them all my check and tell them of my 
success. I felt a wild, boyish admiration for the great man 
before me, and I wondered how any one could be so wicked 
as to say aught disagreeable of him. 

" 'If you will not stay, then you must see something of 
the Hermitage,' he said, leading the way. I walked beside 
him about the grounds, the feeling of admiration and enthu- 
siasm all the while in my heart for the great, tender-souled 
man whose guest I was. As we neared the tomb he raised 
his hand and pointing, said : 'My son, there lies the best 
woman that ever lived.' A cloud of sadness spread over his 
face, and the expression was in keeping with the crepe on 
his hat — that crepe was worn the rest of his life. 

" 'George,' he called, 'show Mr. Hamilton around and I 
will await him here.' I was shown the old gray war horse, 
well cared for in his stable — the steed hero of the battle 
of New Orleans — and also the carriage which was made 
from the timbers of the ship Constitution, and in which 
General Jackson rode at the side of Mr. VanBuren from 
the White House to the east wing of the Capitol on the 
occasion of the inauguration of the latter. 

"Returning, I found the ex-President awaiting me at the 
door. As I took leave he warmly pressed my hand and 
invited me to visit him, saying my short stay under his roof 
had given him a great deal of pleasure — that when he 
came to the city he would be very much gratified if I would 
seek him out and speak to him. He loved his young 
friends, and did not want to be forgotten by them. 

"Jubilant, I mounted my horse and was in town in a third 
of the time it took me to go to the Hermitage. I stopped 
not to hitch the horse, but dismounting, ran into the store, 
and throwing my hat high in the air, catching it as it came 
down, I enthusiastically cried: 'Hurrah for General 
Jackson ! I am a Jackson man now and forever.' 



ANDREW JACKSON. 419 

" 'Why, what In the world is the matter ?' asked Mr. 
West. *I thought you were a Clay Whig.' 

" 'I am a Jackson man now and forever. Hurrah for 
General Jackson!' I reiterated emphatically, and triumph- 
antly handed him the check. 

"And so I was. I never failed to find General Jackson 
when he came to town, always meeting with the same cor- 
dial welcome. The magnetism of the man was wonderful, 
and his warm sympathy and noble nature made him friends 
and held them." 



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